Search food near me in downtown Los Angeles and you will eventually run into a hundred-year-old argument. Two restaurants roughly a mile apart both claim to have invented the French dip sandwich, and both have signs, dates and stories to back it up. Cole's on East Sixth Street opened in 1908 and its version of the story is the one worth hearing, partly because the building it happened in is still standing.
This block runs on two clocks: an early food crowd and a much later bar crowd. Ask Karpo whether Cole's kitchen is still on and what the Sixth Street bars look like tonight before you head down.
Two claims, one sandwich
The Cole's account is that a chef dipped the bread in jus in 1908 to soften it for a customer with sore gums. The competing account, from Philippe's near Chinatown, dates to 1918 and involves a dropped roll landing in a roasting pan. Neither can be proved, both are retold constantly, and the argument has now outlived everyone involved in it.
What is not disputed is the age of the room. Cole's occupies the ground floor of the Pacific Electric Building, which was for a time the largest building west of Chicago and served as the terminal for the Red Car interurban railway that ran across Southern California. The bar was originally there to feed and water people getting on and off trains, which explains both the location and the long counter.
The interior retains the elements that matter: a forty-foot mahogany bar, penny-tile floor, red leather booths, and lighting that has never been persuaded to get brighter. It was restored rather than replaced in the 2000s, which is the difference between a genuine old room and a convincing new one.
The Red Car connection is not a decorative footnote either. Until the early 1960s you could get off a streetcar upstairs and be at this bar in under a minute, and the sandwich exists in the shape it does because it had to be eaten quickly by people with a train to catch. That is the honest reason a French dip is built for one hand.
The sandwich and what to order with it
The French dip here is roasted meat, sliced thin, on a French roll, served with a cup of jus for dipping. Beef is the default. Lamb, turkey and pork versions have all been on the menu at various points, and the lamb is the one regulars point at when they want to argue that the beef is the boring choice.
Dip the sandwich yourself rather than asking for it pre-dipped. The roll is built to take about two seconds in the jus per bite, and anything longer collapses it. The atomic pickle, a brined and heavily spiced pickle that has been on the menu for years, is the correct side and the only one that stands up to the jus.
The bar behind the bar
At the back of Cole's there is an unmarked door that leads into The Varnish, a small cocktail bar that opened in 2009 and became one of the most influential rooms in American drinking. It is roughly the size of a railway carriage, has live jazz several nights a week, and makes drinks slowly and precisely rather than quickly.
Practically, that means Cole's is two venues with two completely different rhythms. You can eat a sandwich at the front for a modest amount of money in twenty minutes, or you can spend three hours at the back. The back room takes limited numbers and there is often a wait on weekend nights, which is best absorbed at the front bar with a beer.
If you only have one evening downtown, this is the most efficient version of it: an old sandwich in an old railway building, then a serious cocktail through a door most people walk past.
Prices at the front are still reasonable by downtown standards, which is increasingly rare for a room with this much history attached to it. Lunch for one with a drink lands well under what a comparable Historic Core restaurant charges, and the counter takes single diners without making a fuss about it.
Where it sits downtown
East Sixth at Main puts you at the edge of the Historic Core, walking distance from Grand Central Market, the Bradbury Building and the Pershing Square Metro station. The neighbourhood is genuinely mixed, busy in the day, quieter and rougher at the edges late at night, and best navigated on foot with your bearings rather than by circling for parking.
The Pacific Electric Building itself is worth ten minutes of looking. The 1905 structure is a piece of the Los Angeles that existed before the freeway system, when a streetcar network ran from here to the beach and out to the valleys.
Practical notes
Address: 118 East Sixth Street, Los Angeles, at Main, in the Historic Core. The kitchen runs from midday into the evening and the bar stays open later; the back room keeps its own hours and can close for private events. Confirm on the day rather than assuming a fixed schedule.
Take Metro to Pershing Square and walk; parking in the Historic Core is expensive and slow on weekend nights. Order the beef dip with an atomic pickle, dip each bite yourself rather than soaking the roll, and ask at the front bar about getting into the room at the back rather than trying the unmarked door cold.
Tags: #LosAngeles #DTLA #FoodNearMe #ColesFrenchDip #FrenchDip #HistoricCore #TheVarnish #PacificElectric #LAFood #LABars #SixthStreet #LAHistory #CocktailBar #LAEats
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Ask Karpo first
Want to know whether Cole's kitchen is still serving, whether the back bar is taking walk-ins, and what else on Sixth Street is open late? Ask Karpo for tonight's hours, the wait at the back room, and a walking route from Pershing Square.
