Little Joy Cocktails
1477 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026 (213) 250-3417
- Price Range: $
- Accepts Credit Cards: No
- Parking: Street
- Good for Groups: Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
- Outdoor Seating: No
- Music: DJ
- Best Nights: Mon, Sun, Thu
- Happy Hour: Yes
- Alcohol: Full Bar
- Smoking: No
- Coat Check: No
71 Reviews for Little Joy Cocktails
If you go out on a Friday or Saturday night looking to make out with some coked up person then this is the place for you! Now, if your a cultural tourist and love Echo Park for all it's seedy ethnic splendor AND your pants are tight, then don't ever leave this place...for our sake. Sure, I sound like a hater, but this bar would make most native Angelenos cringe. I hate this bar. But if your too cool for school, then line up douche bag. Oh, and they also need to clean out their pipes because their beer tastes like skunk. Hipsters without a clue in Silverlake/Echo Park are as common as pigeons, but beware their hive...it's called the little joy!
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Funny (1)
Cool (1)
I can't remember how many times I've been to Little Joy. It's just one of those places you find yourself at the beginning or end of your night.
Surreal at times, normal bar at times, but always an intersection of alcoholism and disenchanted complacency. This vortex, Little Joy, definitely lives up to it's name (but not in a negative way by any means). In an optimistic, nostalgia-inducing sort of way.
And "the people" are generally cool once you talk to them, ya just gotta get past the " too-cool-for-school-can-you-guess-the-last-t ime-I-washed-my-hair" exterior...
In general, just don't take anything about this place too seriously.
oh and just a side note: can you guess the last time I washed my hair?
(cash only, no ATM)
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (3)
Funny (1)
Cool (1)
This place is a shithole. Ryan D said it best below me. They go out of their way to make this place look like a shithole. Imagine the shittiest bar you've ever been in trying to charge almost Sunset Strip prices for beer to Hipsters that pride themselves on looking homeless. The guy who owns the place thinks he's Hunter S. Thompson. What more can I say? If you want the HIGHEST concentration of Hiptsers in Los Angeles, this is your place. It may also be possible to conract Syphilis just entering this bar.
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (2)
Funny (5)
Cool (3)
Thirsty Thursdays.
We meet at the Chinatown Station in DTLA. We? Yeah, me and some fellow yahoo's on bikes. After shooting some shit, drinking some beer and waiting for the stragglers, we ride out. Only a handful of us. We bar hop. We try to stop at the usual spots...Charlie's O's, La Cita, Bar 107, Little Joy and we always end the night at Cha Cha Lounge. While some bars are by-passed on occasion, we try to always stop by Little Joy as we head to Cha Cha. Billiards and girls...respectively.
Little Joy brings us much joy.
Fellow yelp reviewers...funny and sometimes stupid.
I read all the the other reviews of said bar and laughed at most of you. I flicked my toothpick at many of you. Tim C. put it best when he said:
"Its kinda like eating at a restaurant in San Francisco's Castro and saying "I couldn't believe how many gay people I saw"" and called Little Joy "...a wonderfully classic shithole..." and "The hipsters are the least of your worries..."
Again, the definition of a "dive bar" has lost it's meaning. Check my Gold Diggers review for my original rant on "Dive bars." Again, it's NOT supposed to be clean. There aren't supposed to be table and chairs in the middle of the bar for people to sit down at...it's NOT fucking Applebee's. There SHOULD be graffiti on the walls. There SHOULD be assholes playing pool who are ready to chuck the 8-ball at your head if you start mouthing off. Complaining about the cash only rule is ludicrous. There's a reason the drinks are cheap...they're not paying out thousands of dollars in credit card fees to the banks everytime someone is using their card. If you want convenient, family fun, try TGIF's in Torrance or Olive Garden at some local mall.
And now, to the hipster hate...
So let me get this straight, you're in Echo Park at a bar on Sunset Blvd...and you didn't expect to see hipsters there? Seriously? Did I miss something?
You know what I don't get when I go to a bar that hipsters go to? Conversations regarding American Idol or the latest JJ Abrams flick. I don't have to hear people talking about Linkin Park's new album. People aren't talking about the latest sale at Old Navy. What I do get is some good conversation about some new exhibit at some new gallery I've never been to in some part of the city I've never been to before. I get a heads up on some new music that MTV hasn't raped yet. I get a reco on some book, that I've never heard about. Let's be sincere here, most of us are part of some social group. I don't care if you're a frat boy or girl. Have fun being a jock or club goer. More power to you if you if you dig Britney Spears or bounce your head to 50 Cent. We go where we find the most things in common with the people who surround us. That's it.
Little Joy. Cheap drinks, good jukebox, live DJ, pretty girls, decent people who are willing to hang with the gangsters of the neighborhood, graffiti friendly walls, two decent pool tables...again, much joy.
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (6)
Funny (6)
Cool (6)
junkie bartenders from williamsburg trying to clean up their act in LA, only to find that they are making minimum wage here in LA and can't afford drugs or a haircut. It's hilarious! Yeah, interesting for LA, but so 2001 for NY.
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Funny (3)
I've been here a couple times since my friends that live in LA live so close.. I really think thats the only reason that its worth going to anyway... not cheap but not expensive, too many hipster bimbos on friday night.. I remember it being better during the week but not that much better
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (2)
Funny (2)
My favorite local place--overrun on the weekends but mostly with pretty cute dudes, nice consolation for whatever circumstances might force you to mingle with the unwashed masses on a weekend. I think it's one of the cleanest and most artfully maintained dives in any time or place. I get really tired of the way everybody Imagineers every last corner of Los Angeles--it's refreshing when a place not only doesn't have a marketer-conceived theme actualized by a team of TLC designers, but actually appreciates and continues the long tradition of providing a watering hole for our drunk poets and artists who don't have to be so g*dd*mn pretty all the g*dd*mn time--and so end up being truly beautiful. The bartenders are pure gold. Someday I might get a tattoo of this place (and I don't have any tattoos). xoxo4evs, LJ!
Wow, I'd heard people mention Little Joy so much over the years, but I'd never actually bothered to go until last night. It was a Friday night, so it was packed, but I just couldn't understand why all of these people were here except that:
1. It's a total shit hole.
2. Most of the people there were hipsters.
3. There's Pabst on tap.
4. Hipsters love drinking bad beer at shitty bars because it gives them street cred.
I went up to the bar and asked for two pints of beer and a fruity cocktail. I told the bartender it didn't matter what kind of cocktail it was so long as it was good. He gave me a screwdriver. That is not a fruity cocktail. Whatever, I took it. It was cheap. I don't like drinking bad beer, so I thought some hard liquor and sweetness would make things better, but I was disappointed.
The reason I like dive bars is because they tend to be pretty empty, which means you can actually hang out and talk to your friends and you have the bartender all to yourself. This dive lacks that. What's the point? It ain't much of a dive bar when Kate Moss is hanging out there with her buddies.
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Funny (2)
Does anyone else always think of American Beauty every time they say or read the word 'joyless'? That line Annette Benning delivered was pretty powerful. Maybe this is why the crowd is the way it is at Little Joy; because they're all lost in thought like me, free associating in Little Joy starting always with themes from American Beauty. No wonder it's so serious.
With the lights on I'd say this place was a crack house, but it's not totally joyless. The bar's stocked, there's dope DJing, they serve bitters & soda, eclectic crowd, pool tables (though lopsided), artful graffiti in the bathroom, doesn't smell bad, and it's close to the Short Stop.
Maybe I don't hate Little Joy.
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (5)
Funny (5)
Cool (3)
Great place, you can come here and grab an empty booth when the Short Stop turns to shit. Good mix of hipsters and local homies shooting pool, which allows this working class Karate Kid to fit in right between them. Eclectic jukebox and owner in control of the record booth makes for a fun place to end the night by throwing some timid little hipster girl over your shoulder and taking her off to your cave.
good dive with pool table, $3 pbr
Ok. i don't know, but I think Little Joy is still cool. They let me in w/out ID and they put a CD I made in the jutebox. BUT PBR is cheaper at Footsies and the manager there doesn't kick me out and tell me I don't need to spend all my time drinking.
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (1)
Funny (1)
Cool (2)
Locals all love this place and if you go enough you'll run into everyone who drinks a lot in LA, eventually. It's not bad, but I don't really understand the draw. I think most people go because they feel like they have to.
They take cash and are pretty cheap. It's loud. It's dirty. It's Echo Park.
I don't care for spending more than one drink here. Go down the block to Gold Room, get a booth, a $1 shot of tequila and some free tacos.
a List of Observations, if you will:
Dripping ceiling...
Drip drip drip on my head/shoulders
Dirty puddles of water on the floor
A guy mopping my shoe
PBR on tap
Soda in 2 litre bottles
Hip hipsters aplenty
oh & the reason we left.... Music so loud it prevents normal functions such as thinking/speaking.
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (4)
Funny (3)
Cool (3)
I find all these postings that designate this bar as being ruined by hipsters hilarious. Its kinda like eating at a restaurant in San Francisco's Castro and saying "I couldn't believe how many gay people I saw.."
I mean its like you ironically become a cooler person because you are able to point out the "hipsterness" of a place. The fact is the place has evolved over the years and was not planned or schemmatically thought out. It is in ECHO PARK people!
It is a wonderfully classic shithole with some annoying types of every race and creed. The hipsters are the least of your worries as there are some dudes in there who WILL get violent if you disrespect.
When you go there don't be a jack ass and definitely don't bring a attitude as it is not a petting zoo to watch "freaks and hipsters". Most the real locals know eachother and relish in the the fact that it is a refuge for everyone who is actually out to get good and drunk.
I loved it 5 years ago and I love it today.
PS: Don't mess with the pool players, you might get popped on the face.
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (2)
Funny (3)
Cool (2)
super pretentious....this place is pretty dirty, and the crowd is not the friendliest to those that aren't as dirty...some of the people i have seen there have worn outfits that cost over $100, and yet they still try hard to look like trash. i don't get it.
i'm not fond of little joy. the crowd, the loud music but no dancing, the lack of seats, they don't take cards......definitely not my first choice
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Funny (1)
so its kind of hard to rate this place b/c for what it is, its perfect, for what it's not, it's terrible, if you get my drift...
i'll elaborate. this is a dive bar. a dive bar is a place where you drink cheap alcohol and cheap beer. there are a lot of dirty-esque men at a dive bar of the sincere and contrived variety. a dive bar is a place to let your greasy hair down and get drunk.
little joy has holes in the roof and grafitti on the walls. little joy is the bastard child of your friend's basement and your other friend's garage.
little joy is an easy neighborhood black out spot.
oh yeah- you can also play pool at little joy if you can see straight enough.
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (1)
Funny (1)
Cool (1)
Oh little joy you ex-Latino- gay bar turned hipster, I'm so proud of your stinky bath room , broken bar stools and cracked mirrors... I remember falling in love with the hot, hot, hot, bartenders gal's that worked there around 2003. I even like it when the cranky Bar / owner / manger , freaks out when a west side weekend hipster touches him. I love you little joy - that i bring all of my out of town friends you- Little joy , I know that you been good and bad to my friends , even gotten some of them laid both male and female... Little joy Thank's for the stiff drinks and the warm Pabst.
Dude. The little joy. yes. ok. will Detroit be there? cool. oh shit there's my ex. ill be right back. im back. tacos?
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (1)
Funny (3)
Cool (1)
if the lines to long at the short stop
come here
cheap drinks
docked them a star because they dont accept cards
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (2)
Funny (2)
Cool (2)
Big joy, happy ending.
Always a good hang.
Bring cash, or make sure your buddy that you plan on mooching off does.
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (2)
Funny (2)
Cool (2)
Neil Diamond loves little joy
$3 for a pabst 75 cents for pool, but most importantly rockin tunes
This place was my refuge when the Short Stop got too big for its britches. It's the bar that time forgot, where law and order have no place, and it's everyone for themselves. Smoking is rampant, butch lesbians playing cards with vatos, and bears playing pool. God bless Little Joy!
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (2)
Funny (3)
Cool (3)
You know the cover of Beggar's Banquet? Like, not the one that looks like an invitation but the one with all the writing on the wall? Drinking here is sorta like being in the album cover, provided of course that the album cover had a rad DJ, strong drinks and super nice patrons. I mean, shit, I hugged a guy when I left here. Also, I was going to give this bar four stars but had to bump it up to five when I remembered that some dude wrote "it's a costume party and everyone is dressed as their parents" in the bathroom. Brilliant.
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (1)
Funny (1)
Cool (1)
this place is alright for a drink and if you dont want to wait in line for shortstop. the drinks are pricier than you would expect but on a good night its got a good crowd. the other night when i was here it was kind of a weird crowd and i got the feeling the bartender didnt approve of me having fun. most of the staff were really nice though but it was a weird vibe crowd that night. i think the gold room sounds like a better deal and im going to check that out next time.
Little Joy is like the Silverlake Trader Joe's (I mean it in a good way); stop by on any given night and you're bound to bump into a friend. It's the Cheers of Echo Park. Sure you have to cohabitate with some overly coiffed hipsters, but who cares... the music is great (2 of my friends DJ in the smallest DJ booth you'll ever see) and there's no need to give a crap about how you look. At least I don't & I certainly don't feel out of place.
To eavesdrop on some amusing drunken conversations, stop by the ladies room for a potty break.
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (1)
Funny (1)
Cool (1)
I love dive bars. This is just a dumb hipster hangout. I actually like the owners and bartenders. It's the patrons that fuck up the place.
Stephy S has it about right.
I left Los Feliz when it got too hipster and moved to Silverlake. Moved from Silverlake to Echo Park almost 9 yrs ago... and I was safe, protected from the hipsters by our rivaling gang violence. Now in the past 3-4 yrs, the violence has settled down, and they've taken over Echo Park too. I am leaving the country in a month. DO NOT FOLLOW ME, ZOMBIE HIPSTERS. You look like you stepped off the Orleans album cover, and that is NOT a good look, you dumb hoser.
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (1)
Funny (4)
Cool (4)
I don't care what anyone thinks of this place. I love it. Actually don't come here. I don't want it's grimey but some what welcoming atmosphere to be ruined. Drinks are cheap and strong- cash only is kind of a bummer.
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (2)
Cool (2)
If you go early they dont need ID so i take underage girl, 19 to bar. She was happy after 3 pbrs. Too bad she didn't want to go home with me. Later i find myspace pictures of her in little joy bathroom. what a cunt. Overall it attracts many future burnouts and deadend floaters. they are yesterday generation. but what i do, i can walk there in 5 minutes. Ok i go.
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (2)
Funny (3)
Cool (2)
Sometimes you just have to be in the mood. Right? Unfortunately, this wasn't my night. After a strange night at Short Stop we stopped in here before 4100. And yeah, this isn't my place...at least. I wasn't in the mood....for graffiti walls, dirty ceiling tiles, cash only, hipster crowd that ignores everyone else other than cute hipsters, and a mystery substance on the floor.
So you may ask, why do I give it 3 stars??? Bc I can have fun anywhere and have a feeling if I lived local to this spot, I would walk over on a regular basis and make friends with the patrons and make this my home whole in the wall. So the potential is def there.
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (2)
Funny (4)
Cool (6)
If you're interested in poofy-haired hipster dive bars, this place is for you. Great music (an eclectic assortment of indie and old country), talented DJs, fun pool tables, and a decent selection of tap beer. Unfortunately, the Joy is "cash only," so come prepared. Once you walk in, act like your shit doesn't stink and roll your eyes at the dudes who dress like the Strokes. Don't give the girls any attention at all. This is the way to earn respect. In fact, they will respect you so much that they may start dressing like you, but in a gayish/ironic way. That's how they do things.
According to buttercheeks, the bathrooms are in horrible condition. So keep that in mind...
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (5)
Funny (5)
Cool (6)
On a Friday I'd hoped to see this place a little more bustling. The $7 Wild Turkey seemed a little steep considering all the money they saved not cleaning/painting/furnishing the place. The sleezy British guy that was drooling (literally) on every girl in the place was a nice touch, though I give the manager(?) and bartender credit for kicking him out as soon as they were alerted to his presence.
Synopsis: definitely a dive, possibly hip, not crowded, two pool tables.
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (2)
Funny (3)
this dive scared the asian in me.. just cuz its literally one concrete room with a pool table on one side and shifty characters on the other. but order a round of Pabst and u'll appreciate this dingy tagged-up dive in all its glory. we came here after Short Stop.. which is about 2 blocks down.
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (3)
Funny (3)
Cool (3)
Little Joy is a dirty little dive bar. It has almost no atmosphere but still manages to be charming somehow...it's a last-stop-of-the-night kind of place, for sure. I stuck to bottled beer so I can't vouch for cocktail strength but the beerkeep seemed very nice.
This is just the impression I get from my one visit whilst tromping around in LA...my brother seemed to know almost everyone in the bar and all of those people seemed to be really really nice and really really drunk...it was pretty crowded for a weeknight by my "uptight" Boston standards (ha!)...but that's just how you LA kids roll...
so i really don't like to post a bad review but i have to tell you this place has been a joyless miserable place each and every time i have attempted to stop in .. i love dive bars don't get me wrong you know dark dive everyone knows your name but this place is filled with you know ... "HIPSTERS" that are really trying to be a hipster and a bunch of freaking egomaniacs !! The layout is shitty if you don't watch it you might just get stuck in the kidney by a pool stick or catch a gruesome disease just standing in the bathroom line LOL so if you have the choice short stop that is across the street with a dance floor Thursdays use to rock or this place ...take a run for it pretty sure you don't want to get caught up in the pretentious absolutely ridiculous wanna be silverlakeian conversations . you will thank me ! one last thing they don't even take credit cards :(
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (1)
Yeah this place is a dive bar by typical dive bar standards: has a bathroom that smells like a swamp, lots of graffiti on walls , drinks are kinda cheap, cash only bar, everyone seems to be illegally altered in one way or another., and most importantly Little Joy is "soooooo three years ago" (as everything else is in this city)
From my few experiences at this establishment.....more often than not....it's a LA dive bar with an often faux trashy but too cool for school
attitude. See I lived in the dirty dirty south before coming out west . In the south, dive bar patrons were friendlier.. they kept it more "real", and more polite. But whatever, yeah I gave it four stars..the bar got me laid once..or twice (by a scummy douche bag limey bastard.....but sex is like pizza.) and at this point. who cares..give me my beer and here's a 10 dollar bill..and F you too.
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Funny (1)
So, I had just flown in from my DC home the night before, and the jet lag- yes, i know it's just a few hours- was kicking my ass. I think this was due in large part to several hours of semi-legal drinking in various parks, hilltops, parking lots, and abandoned buildings strewn about the LA area. We were on our bikes, we were buzzed, and they were showing me around LA. It was good.
The group decided that tamales were a necessity at this point, and wagered that our chances of finding the tamale guy were best at Little Joy. Besides, they had bathrooms and I was ready to stop peeing in alleys. They warned me that it was a little too cool. Meh, whatever.
I was whelmed at what I saw. A bar. People drinking. Fake wood wanescotting. A pool table, a jukebox. And not long later, the tamale guy. We drank, peed, ate, and left. Just in time, according to other reviews. I don't know why people are so hung up on hipsters n' stuff. It's beer. Drink it.
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Funny (1)
Cool (1)
"This was the worst decision we made tonight. Of course the line for Short Stop is going to be long at Midnight on Friday."
"Sorry man, but I had a tough day at work, and so I had to relax a while and smoke a bit. It just took me too long to get ready. Besides, you weren't ready at 9 anyway."
"Well, it just sucks standing here in this line... are they even letting anyone in? Look, two people just came out... what the hell, how come they just went in, they weren't even in line."
"F**K dude, I don't want to be standing here til last call. Let's just go drink at Little Joy and then we'll hit an afterhours."
"That place sucks, but ok, let's go."
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (3)
Funny (3)
Cool (4)
There's little joy in going to Little Joy. But no, really, it's alright. Nothing special at all. Very pretentious. Go out of their way to make this place look like a trashy place. Overpriced for a dive. All in all, its pretty silly.
"Uhmm...excuse me these are our seats." Are you fuckin' serious!?...That was my first Little Joy experience..which was maybe a year ago and I haven't been back since. It sucks when stupid people kill things. I mean these bitches were stupid...and NO we didn't give "their seats" back. I'm sorry but if I am at a packed bar I'm gonna sit at the first available seat I see...I don't care if you went out for a smoke. Their Whiskey Sour was good but I don't think I wanna be surrounded by "too cool hipsters" who think they own the joint.
*That could've been a cool bar fight though. I totally would've kicked their asses.
Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review
People thought this was:
Useful (2)
Funny (3)
Cool (2)
People Who Viewed This Also Viewed...
Related Lists
-
echo park drinking
after that time i lost my car, i decided no more… -
LA Was My Lady
I lived in LA for 3 years, and while SF is my… -
Los Angeles Bars!
Don't you just hate it when there's too much blood… -
my fave dive bars
we all know im partial to the tenderloin but ive… -
S-Lake, E-Park,…
Places I've reviewed in Silver Lake, Echo Park,… -
My Neighborhood
My local dry cleaner, watering hole, deli, cafe,… -
My Neighborhood
My local dry cleaner, watering hole, deli, cafe,…
Hot and New
- The Nook Bistro
124 reviews
Los Angeles, CA
- Vinoteque
12 reviews
Neighborhood: Culver City
- Sushi Gallery
11 reviews
Cerritos, CA