Back on Channel Road, the Friendship Bar Sets Sail Again
Golden Bull alum Daniel Baker revives a nautical Santa Monica Canyon bar whose story starts with a Prohibition speakeasy.
There is a ship moored on Channel Road again. The Friendship Bar, at 112 W. Channel Road in Santa Monica Canyon, soft-opened on August 13 with a grand opening planned for September, and the portholes are lit.
The building has had more lives than most. In the 1920s Doc Law ran a Prohibition-era speakeasy on the site. In the 1930s it became Doc Law’s Friendship Cafe and then the S.S. Friendship Bar, which closed in the mid-2000s. More recently it was The Hideout and then Santa Monica Shorebar, an h.wood Group concept, and Time Out notes it has also operated as a gay bar.
Daniel Baker, formerly of Golden Bull, now runs it with his business partner Michael Mohamed. His vision, he told the Palisadian-Post, was “to bring it back to the Friendship days.”
That means a ship-shaped building with a prominent bow and working porthole windows, alcoved booths lit by nautical lanterns, a shiplap bar, a back deck and an upstairs lounge for private events. Classic cocktails such as martinis and manhattans are $15.
The soundtrack moves from live jazz to soulful piano, with DJs on weekends. The bar opens at 5 p.m. on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays and at 2 p.m. on weekends, and stays open until 2 a.m. Friday through Sunday.
