LOS ANGELES
DOWNTOWN
NEWS
Downtown Living 7-16 W W W. D O W N T O W N N E W S . C O M
July 25, 2011
Volume 40, Number 30
Building a Better Bar
INSIDE
How Designer Ricki Kline Sculpts a Downtown Watering Hole Aftermath of an Art Walk tragedy.
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A royal upgrade for the Palace.
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Big football names at the Coliseum.
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photo by Gary Leonard
Ricki Kline in Colés, one of seven Downtown bars he has designed for 213 Ventures. The 65-year-old moved into the Historic Core four years ago. by Ryan Vaillancourt staff writer
R
icki Kline, the designer of seven Downtown bars including Seven Grand, the Varnish, Cole’s and Las Perlas, has all the skills one would expect in a nightlife interiors expert. He has a background in carpentry and a Rolodex full of specialty craftsmen that can make the accessories he can’t find or fabricate himself.
The X Games fly back to Downtown.
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It’s his devotion to a common ritual, however, that Kline believes sets him apart. Quite simply, the guy drinks. In his blue-collar uniform of worn jeans and black T-shirt, the stubble-faced Kline, 65, is at home on a barstool. Just don’t expect to find him nursing a bottle of domestic light beer. Kline, the exclusive designer for 213 Ventures, the company behind a batch of Downtown watering holes that take cock-
tail culture very seriously, sips the good stuff. “We’re bar people,” said Kline, referring also to his business partner for the past year, Kellie Patry. On a recent weeknight at the Varnish, 213’s minimalist, pre-Prohibition-esque cavern of dark wood and subway tile in the basement of the Pacific Electric Building, Kline ordered his regular drink, a “perfect Manhattan.” The pool of see Ricki Kline, page 18
Follow the Bouncing Football Meet hundreds of dogs at the cathedral.
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Once the City and AEG Sign a Stadium Deal, the Real Game Starts by Jon Regardie
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executive editor
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n Tuesday, July 26, about 1,000 Down towners and approximately 600 canines will congregate on the plaza of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels for Dog Day Afternoon, a pooch-and-people social event that THE REGARDIE REPORT
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will be filled with plenty of sniffing and, probably, a decent amount of snapping. Three days later, the 14 members of the City Council (Janice Hahn already escaped from L.A.)
LIVE / WORK
TOWNHOME
will meet in City Hall and spend hours discussing the proposed Farmers Field project. A week or two after the meeting, they will almost certainly vote in favor of approving the framework of a $1.3 billion deal with developer Anschutz Entertainment Group. At this point, it’s impossible to tell which event will proceed in a more orderly fashion. There will probably be more barking at the Cathedral, though that’s not a given. During the council session they’ll likely spend more time trying to figure out who the alpha dog is and where he or she wants to take the pack. I have no idea which happening will produce more preening.
FOR SALE
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Friday council session (which follows two other meetings of the council’s ad hoc stadium committee, including one on Wednesday at City Hall at 5:30 p.m.) is that it’s not nearly as much of a game-changing moment as a lot of the rhetoric would lead one to believe. Whereas some have cast this as a drive down the field in the fourth quarter, one leading to a triumphant score, in reality the effort to return professional football to Los Angeles hasn’t even kicked off. This isn’t the final gun but rather pre-game festivities, and the deal with the city is only a precursor to see Football, page 20
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