The specific misery of following an East Coast team from Los Angeles has nothing to do with loyalty and everything to do with clocks. A one o'clock kickoff in Foxborough is ten in the morning on Wilshire Boulevard. That is not a small inconvenience to be absorbed with a second coffee — it is the difference between a Sunday that begins gently and a Sunday where you are dressed, out of the house and in a bar before most of the Westside has decided whether to go to the beach. Anyone who has done it for more than one season has built a routine around it, and for a large number of New England transplants that routine terminates at 2615 Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica.
The hard part of following an East Coast team from Los Angeles is never the bar — it is the three hours you lose off the front of your Sunday. Tell Karpo your team and your neighbourhood and get the room that will be full at 10am, plus somewhere to eat within walking distance of it afterwards.
What it means for a bar to be official
Sonny McLean's turns up on the Patriots' own fan-club bar directory, which is a more meaningful credential than it first appears. Plenty of bars announce themselves as the home of a team on a chalkboard; a listing in the club's directory means the affiliation runs both ways, that there is an actual supporters' group attached to the room, and that on a given Sunday somebody other than the bartender is organising the thing. It is the difference between a bar that will put your game on and a bar where the game is the reason the doors opened.
The pub was opened by Boston natives in the late 1990s and the identity has never drifted. It is an Irish pub in form — dark, narrow, more wood than glass — and a New England clubhouse in function, which is a combination that reads as slightly incongruous on a boulevard this wide and this sunlit until you are inside it, at which point the windowlessness stops being a design flaw and starts being the entire idea.
It is not only football
This is the part people outside the system underestimate. A Boston bar in Los Angeles is a four-sport building. The Patriots own autumn Sundays, the Red Sox own summer evenings, the Celtics own the winter and the spring, and the Bruins occupy the same months at inconvenient hours. Between them there is almost no week of the year when the screens have nothing that matters on them, and the crowd that shows up for a Tuesday Celtics game is recognisably the same crowd, slightly smaller, as the one that shows up for a playoff Sunday. If you have just moved west and you are trying to find your people, the off-season is a better time to walk in than the first weekend of the NFL season, when the room is at its least navigable.
The 10am problem, solved properly
Three Pacific-time rules are worth internalising for any early-window game, here or anywhere else in the city. The first is that opening time is the only fact that matters and it is the one most often assumed rather than checked — a bar's ordinary Sunday hours and its hours on a game Sunday are different pieces of information, and the second is the one you need. Confirm it for the specific week rather than trusting a listing.
The second is that arrival time should be measured backwards from kickoff, not forwards from when you wake up. For a room with a real supporters' group, thirty to forty-five minutes before the first snap is the window in which you can still choose where to sit. Arriving at 9.55 for a 10.00 start means standing, and standing for three hours at ten in the morning is a different physical experience from standing for three hours at night.
The third is that you should eat. A ten o'clock game finishes around one, which is lunchtime, which means the entire middle of your day happens inside a bar with no natural light. This is the single most common mistake made by people new to watching an East Coast team from the West Coast, and the correction is simply to order food early rather than treating the morning as an extension of the night before.
Wilshire, parking, and getting out
The stretch of Wilshire through the middle of Santa Monica is one of the more forgiving parts of the Westside on a Sunday morning, which is a real argument in favour of the early game. Metered street parking and the side streets running north and south off the boulevard are genuinely available at nine in the morning in a way they are not at one in the afternoon, and the traffic you would normally fight to get across town has not started yet. Come at nine, and the drive is the easiest part of the day. Come at half past twelve for the late game, and it is the hardest.
The other advantage of the address is what surrounds it. Finishing a game at one o'clock leaves you on the Westside with the whole afternoon intact and the ocean fifteen minutes away, which is a much better outcome than the equivalent Sunday in Boston, where the game ends at four and the day is over. Transplants tend to complain about the ten o'clock start for about two seasons before quietly realising it is the better arrangement.
- Check the game-day opening time for the specific Sunday — not the standard hours
- Arrive 30 to 45 minutes before kickoff if you want to sit down
- Order food during the first quarter; a 10am game eats your entire lunch
- Off-season Celtics and Bruins nights are the easiest way to walk in for the first time
Practical notes
Sonny McLean's, 2615 Wilshire Boulevard, Santa Monica. Opened by Boston natives in the late 1990s and listed in the Patriots' fan-club bar directory; Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins games carry the same treatment across the calendar. Multiple screens in a narrow, dark Irish-pub room with a supporters' group attached, so early-window NFL Sundays are organised events rather than incidental broadcasts. Street and side-street parking off Wilshire is realistic before ten in the morning and difficult afterwards. Confirm the opening hour for any 10am kickoff directly before you travel, and expect playoff weekends to run considerably fuller than the regular season.
Tags: #LosAngeles #SantaMonica #Wilshire #PatriotsNation #BostonInLA #WatchParty #NFLSunday #LASportsBars #SonnyMcLeans #Westside #EarlyKickoff #IrishPubLA #ThingsToDoLA #GameDay
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Ask Karpo first
Want to know which Los Angeles bar belongs to your team, whether it opens in time for a 10am kickoff, and where to park on Wilshire on a Sunday morning? Ask Karpo for the room that matches your allegiance, the realistic arrival time, and what is open nearby for food once the early game is done before lunch.
