A happy hour near me search in downtown Los Angeles produces a stack of rooftops, and the one people name first is usually Perch, on the upper floors of a 1920s building looking straight down onto Pershing Square. It is the most conventionally beautiful rooftop view in the city and the crowd reflects that, which is worth planning around rather than being surprised by.
Downtown rooftops swing from empty to queueing within an hour of sunset, and the two levels here fill differently. Ask Karpo how busy Perch is right now and when the sun sets tonight.
The building underneath it
The bar occupies the upper floors of the Pershing Square Building on West Sixth Street, a 1920s structure from the era when downtown Los Angeles was the commercial centre of the region and its architecture was competing with New York. The Historic Core is dense with this kind of building, most of which spent the 1970s and 1980s largely empty.
What makes the rooftop work is that height in this part of downtown is rare. Fifteen floors is not tall by modern standards, but the surrounding blocks are mostly low, so the view is unobstructed in a way that a higher floor of a newer tower further west would not be.
The view down into Pershing Square is the specific thing you cannot get elsewhere. The square itself is a divisive piece of urban design that has been rebuilt several times, and looking down at it from above is genuinely the best way to see it.
Two levels, two moods
There is a lower level with a restaurant and a fireplace-lounge arrangement, and an upper level that is the true open-air rooftop with the full view. They operate differently and fill differently, and the queue at street level is generally for the top.
The lower level is where you go if you want to eat, sit down and hear each other. The top is where you go for the view and the atmosphere, which after dark means a busy bar with a line for drinks. Neither is wrong; picking the wrong one for what you actually want is.
The restaurant menu is French bistro in register, which sits oddly with a rooftop bar and works better than it should. Steak frites and similar are the reliable orders.
Timing is the whole thing
Go at least an hour before sunset. You get the daylight view, the golden hour and then the city lights coming on, all from the same seat, and you arrive before the queue forms. Turning up at nine on a Saturday means waiting at street level for a lift.
Happy hour pricing typically runs in the early evening window, which is the same window that gives you the best light, so the calculation is straightforward. Weeknights are substantially easier than weekends at every hour.
There is a dress code and a door, which is normal for downtown rooftops. Smart casual clears it; beachwear and athletic gear do not.
Downtown around it
The Historic Core is walkable and dense with things worth seeing: the Bradbury Building's cast-iron atrium two blocks east, Grand Central Market a few minutes further, the Los Angeles Central Library a block west, and the Millennium Biltmore's lobby on the far side of Pershing Square.
Pershing Square Metro station is directly below, which makes this one of the few LA nightlife venues where the train genuinely is the best option. Parking downtown on a weekend evening is expensive and slow.
If the queue is impossible, the Historic Core has more good bars within a five-minute walk than almost anywhere else in the city, several of them in similarly interesting old buildings.
Rooftops and the view tax
There is a premium on drinks at any rooftop with a view, and it is worth being honest that you are partly paying rent on the altitude. The question is whether the room gives you something you cannot get cheaper at street level, and here the answer is genuinely yes, because there is no other vantage point over this particular square.
The corollary: do not make this the whole evening. One or two drinks at the top, then down into the Historic Core for the rest of the night, is a much better use of both your money and the neighbourhood.
Pershing Square itself deserves a footnote. It has been a public square since 1866 and has been completely redesigned at least four times, most recently into the hard-surfaced version visible from above, which is widely disliked and has been slated for another rebuild for years. Looking down at it is the best way to understand why the debate exists.
Practical notes
Address: 448 South Hill Street, Los Angeles, on the upper floors of the Pershing Square Building in the Historic Core. Evening service with the restaurant and rooftop keeping different hours; confirm both. Reservations are available for the restaurant level and the rooftop generally runs on a queue.
Arrive an hour before sunset, take the lower level if you want to eat and the top if you want the view, dress smart casual, and use the Metro rather than driving. One or two drinks here and then the rest of the evening at street level is the efficient plan.
Tags: #LosAngeles #DTLA #HappyHourNearMe #Perch #RooftopBar #PershingSquare #HistoricCore #LABars #SunsetViews #DowntownLA #LANightlife #FrenchBistro #LAEats #CityViews
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Ask Karpo first
Want to know how long the Perch queue is right now, what time the sun sets tonight, and which Historic Core bar is easier to get into? Ask Karpo for the current wait, tonight's happy hour window, and a five-minute-walk alternative.
