Los Angeles Cocktail Bar The Varnish Is Closing After 15 Years

The Los Angeles cocktail scene was shaken recently when Eric Alperin, co-owner and co-founder of The Varnish, announced the impending closure of his groundbreaking speakeasy. 

Launched in 2009 by Alperin, Cedd Moses, and the late Sasha Petraske, The Varnish was an extension of Petraske’s vision for his groundbreaking New York City bar, Milk & Honey. It didn’t take long for Los Angeles to buy into the bar’s vision, which became a mainstay of the city’s drinking culture. 

Hidden in a former storage room in the back of one of L.A.’s oldest restaurants, Cole’s French Dip, The Varnish focused on classic cocktails with intent, purpose, and impeccable technique.

Over its 15 years in operation, The Varnish grew to be one of the most beloved and influential bars in the city, placing 22nd in the World’s 50 Best Bars in 2011, winning a Tales of the Cocktail Spirited award for Best American Bar in 2012, and snagging a James Beard Award semifinalist nod in 2017. The Varnish was also frequented by the late L.A. food writer Jonathan Gold and earned a visit from Anthony Bourdain in 2012 for his Travel Channel show, The Layover.

After a decade and a half, The Varnish is finally closing its doors, marking the end of an era. So what happened, and what does it mean for the bar landscape in Los Angeles, and beyond?

Raising the bar

Before The Varnish, there was a small but growing cocktail scene in Los Angeles that was still behind other major cities in many ways. 

“L.A. was the [misfit] of the cocktail world. Nobody took it seriously,” says Leandro DiMonriva, who spent a decade bartending at Cole’s and frequenting The Varnish before becoming a full-time educator and cocktail educator at The Educated Barfly.

It wasn’t the first craft cocktail bar in Los Angeles, but The Varnish marked a sea change in the city’s bar and hospitality community.

“The opening of The Varnish was pretty much making a declaration, like, ‘This is what we believe,’ you know, a philosophical approach to cocktails. It clearly resonated in a lot of different ways,” says former Varnish bartender Alex Day, now co-owner of Death & Co. and a partner with Gin & Luck.

The Varnish’s commitment to its core values set a high standard for bars in Los Angeles.

 “It was one place in particular that had no problem saying ‘We’re gonna hold to our standards,’” says Gordon Bellaver, Varnish alumnus and partner at Penny Pound Ice. “It wasn’t about, ‘Oh, look at how great The Varnish is,’” he says. “It was more like, ‘Wow, The Varnish has some strong values and a very strong point of view, and I can do that too,’ you know?”

The magic of the bar was an amalgamation of factors, including attention to detail and genuine thoughtfulness from those who worked there. 

“I could tell you about the hand-cut ice and the fresh juices and the meticulous attention to measuring and cocktail temperature and garnish placement and even our playlists, but what made The Varnish special was how much we all individually cared about bringing it to life every single night,” says former Varnish bartender and hospitality consultant Devon Tarby.

The tiny 987-square-foot bar provided a welcome escape for guests. Low candlelight, live jazz musicians, and the constant clanking of ice shaking against tin created a timeless, comforting ambiance that invited intimate conversation. 

“You walked in and intended to have a cocktail or two, and then you blink, and you’ve been there for five hours,” says Day. “You’ve made new friends, and there was just like an incredible sense of community treated within that space.”

DiMonriva agrees. “There was a lot of camaraderie. It was just hard to describe, it was like walking into a community where everybody is just on the same wavelength,” he says. “I got to soak up all the knowledge. It’s majorly responsible for what I do now with The Educated Barfly.”

Day, Tarby, and many of the bartenders who cut their teeth behind the stick at The Varnish have gone on to further success in the hospitality industry and beyond. 

A changing scene

Although The Varnish feels untouched by time, it’s still subjected to the material realities of the modern day.

“There’s a kind of overriding narrative right now that we all got through the pandemic, and everything’s fine, and it’s just not the reality,” says Day. “The city of Los Angeles changed fundamentally and downtown changed enormously.” 

Running a bar is not easy work, and the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t make things easier. The volume of restaurant and bar closures across Los Angeles in 2024 so far is staggering and well-documented. The costs involved with running a bar continue to rise and Angelenos still haven’t returned to their pre-pandemic nightlife habits.

“The closure speaks broadly to the housing crisis and to the extreme increase in cost of living we’re seeing in Los Angeles and in many other American cities,” says Tarby. “It feels unjust that The Varnish and so many other small businesses are falling victim to these systemic issues well outside their control.”

Downtown L.A., and specifically the area surrounding Cole’s and The Varnish, was hit particularly hard by the pandemic. 

“Downtown had a little sketch, but nothing that wasn’t exciting in the city that invented noir,” says Alperin. “When the pandemic hit, I know people moved out of downtown. They just didn’t want to be there, and I don’t know how many have moved back.”

Former bar manager Samuel Houston was tasked with steering the ship once The Varnish reopened after lockdowns. “There are plenty of days where I felt like I was a flotation device, like the bar was just treading water,” he says. “I felt like the city needed it, though. For whatever reason.”

The exact thing that made The Varnish so special made it specifically difficult for the bar to pivot during the pandemic. To stop using fresh juices and clear ice or to begin pre-batching cocktails for quicker service is completely antithetical to the ethos laid down by the bar’s founders. 

“Passion projects, or things that take a lot of labor and are a big labor of love, are unfortunately very easily cut when the fat gets trimmed,” says Day. “ You know, it’s just a difficult situation. But at the same time, I think it was always one of those places that you thought would be around forever because of its consistency, because of its notoriety and recognition.”

Last call

With the closing of The Varnish, many of those who enjoyed the bar or worked there are feeling nostalgic. One pervasive sentiment was a sense of gratitude for having been part of something they felt was special. 

“It’s so hard for folks like us to not wrap up a piece of who we are and our identity and have it superimposed onto this thing, this idea that we created,” says Day. “And when it fails, it just doesn’t feel real.”

Houston adds that normally, “bars open and close so quickly we barely notice or have little emotion when they shutter. [But] The Varnish was a bar that fought back and invested in this city, fueled by the bartenders and servers invested in it. It feels like the bar is ready to go be with Sasha.”

In the end, The Varnish is going out on its own terms. After surviving the worst of the pandemic, the people behind the bar still refused to compromise their values. Because of this, the community built around the bar will always remember it as the bar’s founders intended.

“Anything really good and worthwhile has beginnings, middles, and ends. You know, all beautiful things have an ephemeral quality to them,” says Alperin. “The Varnish is maybe this little flash point that helped the rest of the city do what it needed to do. It’s okay that The Varnish is moving on.”