NIGHT LINES

What happens when four guys from the South open a bar in Southern California? Santa Monica is about to find out. This weekend, Adam Milstein, Philip Boyd, Chris Shanley and Robyn Landrum open South, on Wilshire Boulevard (at Stanford Street). “We all grew up in the South,” says former Atlanta resident Milstein, 30. “We came up with what we thought is a different kind of concept bar for L.A.” The 7,000-square-foot venue, formerly the Punch Grill, will serve up specialty drinks like mint juleps out of mason jars (pictured). Yes, you’ll be able to dine on fried green tomatoes while listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd. “It’s going to be a lot of recognizable music,” Milstein promises. “A little Johnny Cash and Charlie Daniels never hurt anyone.” . . . Andy Fiscella, co-owner of WeHo’s hot Winston’s, has named his next Santa Monica Boulevard venue Crown Bar. It will open in the former Tempest space by mid-April, he says. . . . Private club the Doheny counts Vince Vaughn among its members. The “Wedding Crashers” star, a fan of Doheny owner Cedd Moses’ other downtown haunts (especially Seven Grand), presumably ponied up the hefty initiation fee just like everyone else at the bar, which is now bustling on many nights. . . . Trifecta, the downtown restaurant/lounge and, famously, home of the $15 hot dog, has gone away -- this time for good. Hardball Productions honcho Charlie Lew had closed the Hill Street venue briefly, reopened with a more sports-bar slant and says he was “cautiously optimistic we could make a real run of it downtown.” A dispute over the lease induced him to say uncle.

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-- Charlie.Amter@latimes.com