On the Scene at Nicky Blair’s

About 9 on a Friday night is peak time here at the bar at Nicky Blair’s, where an upwardly mobile beer-and-wine crowd is already three or four deep. If bars are the cliche of single life, then this one may be the cliche of single life in L.A.

Nicky’s has been described to me as a “bimbo bar,” shorthand for a place where pretty young women come to scope out rich older men--usually rich older agents, producers or managers.

“Hihowyadoin’I’mNickyBlair,” says Blair, grabbing my hand in both of his, as my friend Molly and I prop ourselves against a wall to watch the crowd. “You girls having a good time? I see two pretty girls, I wanna make sure they’re having a good time.”

We are having a swell time so far, surveying the crowd: women with big hair, glossy lipstick worn outside the lines, tight bustiers and curve-hugging panne velvet mini-dresses; men with comb-overs and ponytails, dressed in neatly tailored suits (ties loosened) or leather jackets, and clusters of youngish guys huddled together, drinking beer out of bottles and checking out whatever fresh blood walks in.

Some 30ish men graze the room in cowboy hats and duster coats, while the after-work crowd is conspicuous in suits and sensible heels.

Men outnumber women three to one, and there is very serious eye contact going on.

But Nicky’s isn’t just a place to witness an amazing array of surgically enhanced bodies vying for the attention of allegedly wealthy and powerful entertainment execs.

It sits in the middle of Sunset Boulevard’s paparazzi row along with Le Dome and Spago and for years has been known as one of the city’s premiere celeb hangouts, drawing old-guard Hollywood types, like Tony Curtis and Milton Berle, and some new, like Sylvester Stallone.

Presiding over it is Blair, a former actor and longtime restaurateur who still takes small roles in TV and film if he doesn’t have to be away from the restaurant for long. He is the original schmoozer, glad-handing his old friends as well as new faces.

While Molly and I watch, amazed at Blair’s capacity for remembering names and faces, “Brian” comes over to talk to us.

With his long sideburns and leather jacket, he could be an Omar’s Men model. Only his thin white tie against a white shirt gives him away.

At 26 he still has the ingenuousness of youth, emphasized by the fact that he moved to L.A. from Canada two weeks ago.

He says he is doing some advertising for a restaurant down the street, hoped to make contacts in the ad biz and move back to Canada. He has spent almost every evening in L.A. at Nicky Blair’s.

“I’ve met a lot of nice people and I’ve made a lot of good business contacts,” he explains, fishing some business cards out of his pocket for proof.

Is the bimbo myth true?

“I’ve seen guys come up to girls and say, ‘What will it take you to come home with me tonight? I’ve got the Rolls--what will it take?’ ”

Did he think this bar was so L.A.?

“No, it’s just a little piece of sand on a great big beach. I’m just here to get my piece of the pie and bring it back home.”

Brian isn’t there when I go back on a weeknight with my friend Michele. This time the bar is much less crowded and a ball game is on the TV overhead. Blair is still in turbo-schmooze mode.

A young couple is sitting at the bar, knee-to-knee, his hand inching toward the hem of her very short dress. It isn’t long before she is sitting on his lap and the two are in serious liplock, oblivious to anything around them.

We find seats at the other side of the bar and pretend to be interested in the game. A casually dressed 60ish man with graying hair strikes up a conversation.

He designs furniture and “other products,” points out his Bulgari watch and says that business is really good these days, despite the recession.

“So are you girls looking for some action ?” he asks. “Are you here looking for Mr. Right?”

“So where are you girls from?” he goes on. “ Orange County ?”

It is more of an accusation than a question, as if he is demanding to know if we like to eat swill for dinner.

“I live in Bel-Air,” he says. “Got a big house up on a mountain.”

My, but we are impressed.

I wondered if Nicky Blair has any problem with his restaurant having the “bimbo bar” tag. Turns out he does.

Blair invites me to his small comfortable home next door to the restaurant. He doffs his Dior loafers, tucks his feet underneath him on the sofa and, in thick New Yorkese, defends his restaurant as a nice, respectable place for nice, respectable girls. (In fact, in Blair’s world females only come in girl form.)

“The girls are beautiful girls, they’re 714 and 805 and 818, they come in limousines, six girls for dinner, one was--believe it or not--a brain surgeon , another owned four beauty parlors. Girls with beautiful jobs come to Nicky Blair’s ‘cause it’s a wonderful way to meet nice people. They’re not looking for guys, they’re there to have fun ‘cause it’s a fun restaurant with a wonderful bar and good music.

“Girls who come in, I put them at a nice table, so everyone can see them ‘cause they’re so beautiful. I buy ‘em a bottle of champagne, maybe I pick up their check and they become your best customers and your best friends. They say, ‘Nicky has been so good to me, and I’m a respectable girl. How dare you call me a tramp, like a lot of these big (expletive) people come in and think they’re so much better than you.’ ”

It wasn’t always this way. Blair admits that there was a time when an Unwanted Element held claim to the bar.

Six years ago, “when we first opened we had a lot of the--what’s the expression?--a lot of the guys that I really didn’t want in my restaurant, and I had to segregate them out. They’d hang around, trying to hit on the girls. It’s nice now. I got rid of all that (expletive) crowd. How? I didn’t treat them.”

So what are the girls--and the guys--who gravitate to the bar looking for?

“They’re lonely,” he says. “They’ve been home four nights in a row, and they come here, and it’s like a club now.”

Club Nicky Blair? It could happen.