Haunted Pub Crawl in West Hollywood: Barney's Beanery

A haunted pub crawl near me in West Hollywood should include Barney's Beanery, the roadhouse at 8447 Santa Monica Blvd that has stood on old Route 66 since 1927. Its own site says it is open 365 days a year, and it pours more than forty beers on draft under walls crowded with license plates and sports memorabilia. Rock history, Janis Joplin's reported last meal and a 1965 sculpture of its barroom filled with clock-faced figures give it a darker side than its chili suggests.

The roadhouse feel is what sets Barney's apart from the polished cocktail bars nearby. Time Out counts sixty televisions, and the walls and ceiling carry license plates and decades of memorabilia; Discover Los Angeles notes the pool tables. The company describes the look as eclectic roadhouse decor. It is loud, cluttered and friendly, the kind of place where a crawl group can spread out, order pitchers and swap the old rock-and-roll stories the bar is known for.

The story starts in 1920, when World War I veteran John Barney Anthony opened the first Barney's Beanery in Berkeley, according to Wikipedia and Tasting Table. In 1927 he moved it south to Route 66, the highway that ran along what is now Santa Monica Boulevard. The company still dates itself to 1920 and says its chili follows the same recipe it has used since then, which makes the bowl on your table part of the history lesson.

Be clear about what this stop offers. Ghost tales about Barney's circulate online, but none of them traces back to a reliable record, so this part of the crawl runs on documented history instead. The eeriest piece of it hangs in Amsterdam. In 1965 the artist Ed Kienholz built The Beanery, a life-size walk-in tableau of this barroom whose patrons have clocks for faces, every one stopped at 10:10. Wikipedia records that it was first unveiled in the restaurant's parking lot and now belongs to the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

Kienholz was a regular for a practical reason. In a 2010 profile marking the bar's 90th birthday, the Los Angeles Times reported that Ferus Gallery artists drank here because it was the only bar in the area and Anthony let them run a tab; painter Billy Al Bengston remembered a kitchen with a dirt floor. The same story explains the walls: during the Depression, Anthony gave plates of beans to people heading west for work in exchange for their license plates, and the plates above the bar stand as reminders of that era.

Order the chili. The menu lists four versions: Classic, 3 Bean, Fireman's and Turkey, all built on the 1920 recipe. Tasting Table tells the story behind one famous order: Marilyn Monroe once paid for a $2 meal with a check she signed, and the bar framed it and hung it on the wall. Look for it on the way to your table. A bowl gives you a solid base before you continue east or west along the boulevard.

Then turn to the taps. Barney's says it pours over forty beers on draft, which makes it a good place for groups with mixed tastes to agree on a round. Pitchers and pints suit the pool tables and the sports on screen. On a crawl, keep it to one round here and let the pace of the night decide the next stop, since the boulevard has plenty of bars within a few blocks in either direction.

Barney's rock history is the reason many people come. The Los Angeles Times calls the night Jim Morrison urinated on the long wooden bar in the 1960s a near mythical story, and says he was thrown out for it; KLOS DJ Jim Ladd joked to the paper that staff wiped it off and put a plaque there. Janis Joplin is said to have eaten her last meal at Barney's before her death in October 1970, and the paper names Jimmy Page, Jack Nicholson and Quentin Tarantino among the famous faces who came through.

There is a less flattering chapter worth knowing. In the 1940s Anthony hung an anti-gay sign behind the bar, and activists began picketing it in 1970. According to the Los Angeles Times, after West Hollywood became a city in November 1984 it threatened the owner with a $500-a-day fine, and Mayor Valerie Terrigno took the sign down in January 1985. Co-owner David Houston invited Rev. Troy Perry back in 2005 to offer a public apology. That history is part of how this neighborhood changed, and locals still bring it up.

Timing is easier here than at many bars. Barney's says it is open 365 days a year, and Time Out has listed hours of 10 am to 2 am on weekdays and 9 am to 2 am on weekends. Big game days fill the room, so for a quiet booth and time to study the walls, come in the afternoon. Reservations for the West Hollywood location run through Resy, linked from the official site, which is worth using if your crawl group is large.

Halloween in West Hollywood is the biggest night of the year. The city's free WeHo Halloween Carnaval runs on Saturday, October 31, 2026, from 6 to 11 pm along Santa Monica Boulevard between Doheny Drive and La Cienega Boulevard, a short walk west of Barney's. Expect huge crowds and costumes on every corner. Arrive at Barney's early in the afternoon, eat, and then join the parade crowds once the sun goes down.

For the next stop, walk west along Santa Monica Boulevard into the bars and clubs of the Carnaval stretch, or keep going toward the Troubadour at 9081 Santa Monica Blvd, the 1957 music club where Elton John played his first US shows; it has concerts on the calendar this October. The walk takes you past the rainbow crosswalks and the busiest part of West Hollywood's nightlife, which is where most crawls end up after midnight.

Practical notes: Barney's Beanery is at 8447 Santa Monica Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069. It is open every day of the year, and the West Hollywood location takes reservations on Resy. You must be 21 to order alcohol. Parking on the boulevard is tight, so use rideshare, or the free WeHo Halloween Ride shuttle on October 31, when the boulevard fills with Carnaval crowds.

Barney's suits groups who want a casual base camp for a West Hollywood crawl: sports fans, rock-history buffs and anyone who prefers beer and chili to fancy cocktails. It suits quiet dates less well on game nights. Come for the rock history, look for Monroe's framed check and the license plates over the bar, order a bowl of Classic chili and a draft, then step back out onto the old Route 66 and keep walking west.