Where I Go: L.A.’s Oldest Standing Black-Owned Bar
I Didn’t Know How to Make a Cadillac Margarita. The Living Room Still Offered Me a Job—And a Community
The Living Room is the oldest standing Black-owned bar in Los Angeles. Located in the heart of the West Adams district and previously known as Barry’s Cocktail Lounge, the bar has silently woven itself into the fabric of South L.A. since its founding in the 1940s.
Though I’ve lived in the same neighborhood as the Living Room my whole life, I didn’t learn of its existence until I was 30.
It began with a simple Yelp search.
That year, I decided to leave behind the inertia of my corporate career in hospitality to …