Casey's Tavern — Restaurant in Los Angeles

You can't beat Casey's for a great time along with great music 4 nights a week - Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays! As a free-lance musician, I perform here every Sunday evening on piano, with Woody James and the Jelly Roll Jass Band (Woody is leader and terrific trumpeter), a sextet which plays Dixieland and classic swing and jazz music, so you could say I'm prejudiced! I also perform here on some Saturday evenings, with Evie and All That Jazz, quintet plus fine lead vocalist and entertainer Evie Fiorani, and we do classic swing and Latin tunes, show tunes, with a little country, country jazz, and oldies pop thrown in. In both these bands, I have a great time. Along with all the other band members, I appear in numerous band photos for this venue, both here on Google Maps and also on the Casey's Yelp page.

You can't help but love it here, as it's like a "Cheers" bar where "everyone knows your name and they're always glad you came." The atmosphere is bright and cheery, the drinks are strong and cheap (although we as band members get free drinks, so I always order a Southern Comfort on the rocks!) - note: cash only! - and the bartender on Sunday evenings when I play there, Danny, is incredible. The polar opposite of so many bartenders, who act like you're not there, Danny is alert and engaged, always moving about behind the bar and looking at the customers to see if and what they want to order. The cocktail waitress, Phyllis, is great, too, always timely bringing drinks around. On Saturday nights, the bartenders are also good. Food isn't served, but what's great is that you can bring food in from anywhere else, such as Jerry's Pizza 2 doors down. Jerry's has a varied selection of Italian foods - besides lots of different types of pizza, you can get full dinners such as chicken or eggplant parmigiana, spaghetti with meatballs or sausage, lasagne, etc. They have a nice array of healthy salads, too.

People here are friendly, and besides all the younger patrons, both regular and occasional, there are many older regular patrons who've come to Casey's Tavern for decades, many of whom are in their late 80's and even 90's! It's a very cool bar and place to hang out, for people...

I don't normally go to Casey's these days, but last night a bartender demanded that I buy a drink (I wanted to drink water first as I had already been imbibing) and threatened to call the cops for absolutely no reason. I was having a polite conversation with an older gentleman who was the spitting image of my father which I found amusing, and yes I did curse once or twice because hey, I'm human, and it had been a while since I'd been there. I wasn't loud or aggressive or violent or disruptive but this tiny little man, I am told his name is Anton, abusively demanded that I buy a drink, (ARE YOU GONNA BUY A DRINK, is how he approached me) demanded that I finish it, and demanded that I leave before he called the cops.

Are you kidding me? What would you tell the cops, exactly? That a gorgeous patron said the EFF word by mistake? The man I was speaking to also said a few curses but he was not reprimanded or threatened- sexist much? I'm sure the police would have loved to have had their time wasted. This was abusive, unprofessional and inappropriate. Straight up. I have never been treated so terribly by any bartender at Casey's in the near 20 years I've been there, even on the occasions that I've slipped up and let a curse word out.

I talked to several friends outside and they all said the same thing- "Oh, that's Anton he's a little (insert expletives here)" so apparently this guy has a reputation.

That's OK though, because I do too and you'll see me again!

That ain't "your bar", by the way. The Casey's and my family have history, and I have a long history there myself. That establish ment has served me alcohol since I was 16 so sit...

Casey’s Tavern has a “regulars only” charm. A place where everyone here seems like they’ve been here before and have mastered the routine and said routine eludes newcomers. Want a cup of coffee? Well “usually” it’s free but on Saturday for a couple of newcomers, its $2 (or whatever ridiculous price the bartender decided to charge after he confessed its freeness but not on Saturdays).

The décor even suggest familiarity, an unspoken history of the live music scene. Images of an older crowd of musicians traveling, posing, bonding, smiling, glaze the walls for onlookers to realize that this place has a past.

Coming here expecting red carpet service or sophisticated cocktails is a fool’s reverie. But come for the live-music, cheap drinks, and chill ambiance (they have signs “no swearing, no baseball hats worn backwards, no bandannas (colors), no take tops after 6pm” all suggestive of no nonsense, no tomfoolery type environment maintained by a council of elders who are weary of the “riff-raff” other bars...