Best Happy Hours in Los Angeles

Los Angeles bars mostly write their own happy hours. About seven in ten listings on this page carry a deal composed for that room rather than one of the mass-repeated specials that fill other markets, and the effect is a city with no single house price. What it has instead is unusually long windows.

Downtown holds the best of them. Tom's Watch Bar at LA Live lists $1 pint beers Monday through Thursday from 4 PM to midnight. Mignon on South Spring Street lists $5 wine with $5 small plates daily from 4 to 10. Prank on South Hope Street lists $5 craft cocktails and hands Monday the entire night. Seven Grand on West 7th holds $7 old fashioneds and $6 drafts from 4 to 8, four hours rather than the usual two.

Beyond downtown the map follows boulevards. Hollywood, Wilshire, Sunset, Ventura and West 3rd carry the most listings between them, with a tighter cluster on Hillhurst Avenue in Los Feliz, where MESSHALL lists $1 tacos and oysters in the late afternoon. Q's Billiard Club on Wilshire in Westwood lists $4.50 drinks on weekday afternoons, and Bludso's on Windward Avenue in Venice lists $2 off drafts, wine and house drinks.

Two habits separate LA from the eastern markets. Windows open later, with more listings starting at 5 PM here than in New York or Chicago, and the weekend genuinely counts: better than one listing in five covers a Saturday or Sunday, roughly double Chicago's rate.