Mary and Margo's Halloween Sideshow of Madness

Before

Long walk · 0.5 mi · 11 min walk; 2 min ride - NoHo Arts District

A coffeehouse on Magnolia a block off Lankershim that sells whole pies and slices, sweet and savory, and runs live music on a small stage most nights of the week with no cover. Opens at 9am, which makes it the default place in the NoHo Arts District to sit for an hour before a curtain. Tables fill with people working and the music starts in the evening without anybody clearing the laptops out.

After

0.1 mi · 3 min walk - North Hollywood

A bar built in 1941 in the shape of a whiskey barrel, put up by a Universal film technician named Michael Connolly and left to rot for decades before the 1933 Group restored it and reopened it in 2015. The barrel holds the bar itself, with a patio behind it and a bulldog-shaped structure out back that came off the old Bulldog Cafe. Food is burgers and a pretzel, the drinks list is long, and nobody is dressed up. It is one of the last pieces of programmatic architecture in Los Angeles still doing the job it was built for.