THE ENABLER
Eagle Rock, the enclave west of Pasadena and south of Glendale, has become the place rockers from Silver Lake and Echo Park go to get married and have babies. This is odd considering that the neighborhood (which the Enabler’s brother dubbed “Evil Rock”) has a bit of a wicked past. It is where the “Hillside Strangler” stalked some of their prey in the late ‘70s; and in 1985 an 8-year-old girl was kidnapped from her Eagle Rock home by serial killer Richard Ramirez.
The idea that a harmonious hamlet can have such creepy underpinnings is why the Enabler loves the Chalet. Located down Colorado Boulevard from the pizza joint Casa Bianca, the Chalet is all warm wood, rock walls and firelight. The drinks are reasonably priced and expertly made, and the jukebox is full of punk rock favorites and 1960s crooners.
But in the dim, moody interior, with people’s faces horror-lit from below by candles, you become acutely aware that everyone is at heart a stranger. That brooding gent in the corner could wield a seven-inch record or a seven-inch switchblade, if only in your imagination. But a darkened psyche is why we take to drinking at all, is it not?
1630 Colorado Blvd., (323) 258-8800
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