San Pedro

A corner market on Walker Avenue in a residential part of San Pedro, family run since 1978, where the sandwich counter does most of the trade. You order a hot pastrami or an Italian cold cut, it is built bigger than you asked for, and you eat it on the curb or in the car. Cash only, with an ATM by the door.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 5pm. Closed Sun

The same family has run this on Seventh Street for more than thirty years. A dark bar with a small stage at the back and cold beer. A rockabilly or blues act plays most weekends. It opens at noon and closes at two in the morning every day of the week, which makes it the only thing downtown that is still pouring when a Sixth Street show has let out and everyone else has locked up.

Every day, noon to 2am

The Trani family have been feeding San Pedro since 1925, when the place opened as a cafe for men working the fish canneries and the docks. It is still an Italian restaurant with white cloths and a bar you can sit at. The waiters have worked there a long time. Dinner only, five nights a week, and it is busy on a Saturday without being hard to get into.

Closed Mon and Tue. Wed to Sun, 5pm to 9pm

A record shop on Sixth Street, four doors from the Grand Annex and across from the Warner Grand. JDC started in 1977 as a label putting out disco and italo. Freestyle and hi-energy twelve-inches followed, and the shop still leans that way, though the bins run through every genre on vinyl, CD and cassette. This is the third storefront, after an earlier one on Pacific Avenue and a long run on Pacific Coast Highway in Hermosa Beach. The counter will talk to you about what you are holding if you want that, and leave you alone if you do not.

Tue to Sun, noon to 5pm. Closed Mon

A seventeen-ton bronze bell given by South Korea in 1976, hung in a painted stone pavilion on the bluff at Angels Gate Park. It looks straight out at the harbor mouth and Catalina on a clear day, and the lawn around it is mostly people walking dogs. The bell itself is rung only five times a year, so do not go expecting to hear it.

Mon to Sat, 9:30am to 5:30pm. Closed Sun

A pizza and pasta place on the corner of Sixth and Centre, directly across from the Grand Annex. Red booths, a counter and pizza by the slice or the whole thing. Get the garlic rolls. It opens at half ten in the morning and runs to half eleven on weekend nights, which makes it both the lunch and the walk-home option on the same street as two stages.

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

A diner on Pacific Avenue that has been serving since 1940, with a counter, vinyl booths and a menu of eggs and hash that has not been updated to suit anyone. Service is fast because the turnover is fast. It is the closest real breakfast to Cabrillo Beach and it does not pretend to be anything else.

Mon to Fri, 7am to 2pm. Sat and Sun, 7am to 3pm

James Brown took over the old John T's Tavern space and opened this as a brewpub in November 1999, and it has been the default Sixth Street bar since. A long wooden bar, booths down one side, house beer on tap and a full kitchen going as late as the bar. Televisions are on and the volume is the volume of a working bar rather than a sports hall.

Sun to Wed, noon to 10pm. Thu, noon to 10:30pm. Fri and Sat, noon to 11:30pm

A coffee house one block up from the Warner Grand, with murals by San Pedro painters covering the walls and a player or two on a Friday. It opens at half six in the morning on weekdays, which is earlier than anything else downtown. Order at the counter and take a table or the bench out front.

Mon to Thu, 6:30am to 4pm. Fri to Sun, 7am to 6pm

A café in a 1947 corner building a block up from the water near Point Fermin, with a counter, a pastry case and tables out front. Café de olla, breakfast burritos and quesadillas, and a crowd of people who have walked down from the surrounding streets. It runs seven in the morning to seven at night, every day, which is an unusually long day for this end of San Pedro.

Every day, 7am to 7pm

Oak panelling and brass bar fittings put in when Andrew Silber opened this as a British pub in 1989. It passed to Martin and Susan O'Sullivan in 2020, closed for a stretch, and came back in late 2024 under new owners as a gastropub with the fittings left alone. Fish and chips is still the order and the bar is still where to sit.

Closed Mon and Tue. Wed to Fri, 4pm to 9pm. Sat, noon to 9pm. Sun, 11am to 8pm

A small storefront on Fifth Street in the arts district that serves the same menu from nine in the morning until nine at night. Eggs and bacon in the morning, then steak and fries, lamb and shrimp later, on paper menus in a narrow dining area. It is the one place downtown that will feed you at four in the afternoon, which is when a lot of people need feeding.

Mon to Sat, 9am to 9pm. Sun, 9am to 2:45pm

Brouwerij West shut its brewing operation and this opened in the same 26,000 square foot wartime warehouse on February 1, 2026, with the old staff and managers rehired. Picnic tables inside, a lawn outside, beer from Southern California breweries plus cider and kombucha for anyone not drinking. Bands play it, so check what is on before you count on quiet.

Closed Mon and Tue. Wed, 4pm to 10pm. Thu and Fri, 4pm to 11pm. Sat, noon to 11pm. Sun, noon to 10pm