Steppin’ Out, With Your Broker . . .

Every jungle needs a watering place and in Bunker Hill’s financial district, it’s Stepps.

Starting as early as 2:30 p.m. when the New York stock market closes, hundreds of gray suits and Talbot ties and scores of silk dresses and pearls make their way down the glass-and-steel mountains to the brass-and-marble lowlands of Crocker Court.

They drop their bulging briefcases. They yank their ties loose. They order beer. Or more precisely Corona and lime, also known as “yuppie juice.”

A few go back up to work.

Bankers, traders, commercial real estate brokers filtering in on a recent Friday night agreed that the restaurant/bar has become the “in” place for downtown corporados.

“We were elated when they opened this up two years ago,” said Keven Keep, 29, a Eurodollar broker.

“My clients do work here. Everybody meets here. It’s where the bankers and brokers meet to unwind before going home,” said John Remshifski, 25, a foreign-exchange broker who had just descended 36 floors with friends to celebrate his impending marriage with a few Coronas. And lime. “There aren’t a lot of bars in the downtown area. This is business-like, proper and friendly.”

Stepps draws customers from the 12,000 inhabitants of the Crocker Center’s two towers, not to mention the rest of downtown, manager Debra Hermansen said.

“We’re keyed in on professional people. They spend a tremendous amount of money on expense accounts,” said Suzette (Tex) Burgamayer, the senior cocktail server. One man dropped $5,000 in the bar for a champagne-drinking group of 15. Burgamayer said she not only knows regulars by first name and preferred drink, but also has learned the social politics of corporate competitors like Cushman and Cushman-Wakefield, who won’t pick up the tab for each other.

Most of the customers are men, she said. Fridays are usually “female night,” but those hoping to leave with a handsome executive making $100,000 a year are almost always disappointed, she said. “This is not a pickup bar.”

As the evening turned balmy, the professionals crowded outside to the garden patio, trading talk of hirings and firings, portfolios, the costs of car phone calls and the inevitable “What do you do?” “I’m in sales.” A red sun dipped behind the Bonaventure, the hotel’s image shattering into thousands of windows above them. Across the street, men feverishly pedaled stationary bicycles in the window of the YMCA.

Dennis Charlebois, 32, a sales manager whose hair stood up like small exclamation points, said he had come for the first time and doubted he would come again. “I’ve never seen so many yuppies in my life. These are the type of people I make fun of. They’re too normal. There’s nothing unique about them.”

But Mickey Storms, 29, a securities analyst who lives on Bunker Hill and dropped in in his tennis clothes, said places like Stepps are extremely popular in New York, and Los Angeles could use more of them.

By 9 p.m., most patrons had drifted away, a few into the restaurant. Said a 23-year-old currency broker, “I really should be working out. Friday night doesn’t really start until 10.”

Stepps on the Court, 350 S. Hope St., Los Angeles; (213) 629-0900; free parking.