I entered Hal's Bar and Grill for the first time during the summer of 1989, a year after his opening, just moving to Los Angeles from New York City. The unmistakable sound of Miles Davis touched gently throughout the high ceiling space. My father, Howard Johnson, who was a friend of his restorative partner and owner Hal Frederick. Instantly, I knew it would be my place.
For 30 years, Hal's Bar and Grill was the zero zone for a flourishing Venice scene on the street that in 1990 was renamed West Washington to Abad Kinney Boulevard. With a long bar, cabins with slate tablets, metal sculptures and large pieces of local artists such as Ted Moses, Peter Alexander and Laddie John Dill, the restaurant was great effortless. His atmosphere captured the relaxed domain of his clientele: sophisticated artists and writers, locals and residents of Venice for a long time that, years later, they would shudder when the Boulevard's contracting pride was named “the most great block in America” by GQ magazine.
Hal Frederick, owner and night host of Hal's Bar and Grill, died on April 2 at his home in Venice, surrounded by friends and flowers. I was 91 years old.
High, handsome and elegant, Frederick, a former actor, maintained a night presence in Hal's. He moved from table to table, never stayed more, and everyone sought his greeting. There is an art of being a restorer, and Frederick completely adopted the paper.
He made everyone feel seen. Perhaps his greatest gift, and what hospitality meant for him was to recognize as many people as he could in one night.
The Westside resident and baseball agent for a long time, Adam Katz, recalls: “Hal was always a warm and welcoming presence. He hit that almost impossible bar and restaurant balance with a fresh, high caliber and diverse crowd. I will miss him.”
Native of Brooklyn, New York, Frederick obtained some loans on the screen before embarking on his call as a restorer. Before opening his Bar and Homonymous grill, he was co -owner of Robert's in the Ocean Front Walk in 1977 of Venice, giving the neighborhood an exclusive option.
An article of 1989 Times He described Robert's as “a Venice-Disco restaurant that was a west coast terminal for Bianca Jagger and Truman Capote.”
After Robert's, Frederick worked at the West Beach Cafe in Venice as Maitre D '. There, Don and Linda Novack was presented to future commercial partners. The couple had recently become the owners of the Venice merchant, a failed coffee concept.
In need of someone who knew the restaurant business, the Novacks associated with Frederick and continued transforming the West Washington coffee in Hal's Bar and Grill.
The trio chose Venice due to his affordability, although the neighborhood was the home of street gangs and plagued a high crime rate at that time. It is a set of challenging conditions but not unknown to restorers in search of architecturally inspiring spaces with low overloads.
And it worked.
Actor Lori Petty, resident of Venice of a decades long, described the atmosphere of the restaurant, saying: “He was gay and heterosexual. It was black, brown and white. He was a family, and Hal was dad. The staff and friends often stayed until the sun came out, laughing, dancing and playing the cards. No TV. Kisses.
During a 2012 interviewI asked Frederick about the best part of managing a restaurant.
“I was an actor, and I love theater,” he said, “there is a certain point in the restaurant when we are about to open the doors, the lights are low and it is curtain. It's like a performance. In fact, it's a performance.”
It was a performance that Frederick almost perfected at Hal's Bar and Grill.
My dad and I made Hal our Sunday Brunch place. In those lazy afternoons on homemade cookies and steak and eggs, when the restaurant was a little slower, Hal would get into a cabin with us. The three of us exchanged stories about the scene of restaurants constantly revolution. Both men entered the business in separate coasts in the 70s and emerged a full -fledged gastronomic culture. His link solidified as African -American pioneer entrepreneurs in hospitality.
Hal is closed in its original location in 2015. Two later locations were opened, but none lasted a long time. The magic that makes it a successful restaurant in a place can be an elusive recipe. In 2018, both closed, and Hal's left forever.
“When I first arrived at Los Angeles as candidates for a filmmaker, one of the first 'pleasant' restaurants to those who took my friends was Hal's,” said the director, producer and former president of Bet, Reggie Hudlin. “I remember looking at that brilliant portrait of Hal hanging on the table. That restaurant symbolized the possibility of a black success in this city, and I had to do.”
In 2019, Frederick came to dinner with me in Post & Beam, the California-Soul restaurant that opened in Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw commercial in 2012, which Closed earlier this year. He always set out to visit me in any restaurant where he was involved. I did not argue what became the places that had been closed recently; I knew that pain. His legacy was intact. In Hal's Bar and Grill, he successfully mixed art, design, music, food and people in one of the world's art communities. We share some memories and some laughs, but above all we sat in silence while Miles played.
Brad Johnson is a 40 -year -old veteran in the hotel industry and producer and host of the podcast “Corner table talk”.
