Pasadena

A family-run shop open on Colorado Boulevard since 1956, still carrying CDs and 45s alongside the vinyl and still stocking classical and jazz in depth rather than as a gesture. The back wall runs to DVDs and Blu-rays. The hours are short and the shop closes at five most days, which is the one thing to know before walking over.

Mon to Thu, 11am to 5pm. Fri and Sat, 10:30am to 7:30pm. Sun, 11am to 5pm

A dark British pub on Raymond Avenue with sixty-eight taps and a Belgian list that the owner has been building since the early nineties. Breakfast is served from nine in the morning and the kitchen runs all day. The patio on the side is where most of the noise goes, and the bar itself stays usable at one in the morning.

Daily, 9am to 1:30am

A walk-up burger stand on Arroyo Parkway that opens at five in the morning and serves until midnight, 363 days a year. The breakfast burrito is the thing most people come for and it is sold all day. You order at a window, take a number, and eat at the picnic tables out front. The Walnut Street branch keeps shorter hours, so the Arroyo one is the late stop.

Daily, 5am to midnight. Closed Thanksgiving and Christmas

Jesucita Mijares started this as a tortilla factory in 1920 and her family still runs it, which makes it the oldest Mexican restaurant in Pasadena. It sits in a low building on Palmetto Drive off Fair Oaks with a walled patio and a cantina at the back. Closed Mondays, open from ten on Sunday.

Closed Mon. Tue to Thu, 11am to 9pm. Fri and Sat, 11am to 10pm. Sun, 10am to 8pm

A curved brown building at Colorado and Orange Grove holding a collection that runs from Dutch painting to Degas to South and Southeast Asian sculpture, with a sculpture garden behind it built around a pond. It is small enough to do properly in ninety minutes. Admission is free to everyone on the first Friday of the month from four until seven, and always free for students with ID and anyone eighteen or under.

Mon, noon to 5pm. Closed Tue and Wed. Thu, noon to 5pm. Fri and Sat, noon to 7pm. Sun, noon to 5pm. Last entry 4:15pm, or 6:15pm Fri and Sat

Down an alley off Holly Street into a brick space that was the fire department's horse stables in the late 1800s and has been a pub since 1973. Beer and wine only. A small stage in the corner carries local bills most nights. It does not open until six, so it is an after-stop and not a before one.

Daily, 6pm to 2am

A Formica counter on California Boulevard that has been grinding its own beef and building the same burger since 1963, with a paper-wrapped patty, iceberg lettuce and Thousand Island. The pies are made in house and sold whole or by the slice. It is cash only and there is an ATM by the door. Caltech is two blocks away, so the counter fills with students and contractors at the same time.

Daily, 8am to 9pm

A tonkotsu counter on Arroyo Parkway just south of Colorado that stays open until two in the morning from Thursday to Saturday and midnight the rest of the week. You order at a tablet, pick a bowl and a spice level, and it arrives fast. There is outdoor seating and free parking near enough that nobody circles. It is the one place near the Civic that is reliably still serving food when a show lets out.

Mon to Wed, 11am to midnight. Thu to Sat, 11am to 2am. Sun, 11am to midnight

Charles and Henry Greene designed this in 1908 for David and Mary Gamble of Procter & Gamble, and it is the American Arts and Crafts house everything else gets measured against: joinery left visible, sleeping porches, art glass in the front door. The Gambles' family deeded it to the City of Pasadena in 1966 and it is now a National Historic Landmark run by the Gamble House Conservancy. The exterior and gardens are free to walk around whenever the site is open.

Open Tuesday and Thursday to Sunday, 10am to 4pm, closed Monday and Wednesday

Adam Clark Vroman opened this in 1894 and it has been on Colorado Boulevard ever since, now across two floors with a newsstand, a stationery counter and a café upstairs. Author events run most weeks and they are free to walk into. It is five minutes from the Pasadena Playhouse stage door, which makes it the default place to kill forty minutes in the Playhouse District.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 9pm. Sun, 10am to 7pm