Victoria O.
Yelp
This used to be the Coronet Theater!
Mom and I didn't realize Zarna Garg's show (with opener Tehran) was here because she's 83 and doesn't do much east of the 405 unless it's for work and I don't live in LA, just come to visit. We therefore ended up at The Grove.
The programming here is top notch. I've known so many bands to play here and at some point they branched out into comedy. I just didn't know this is where it was (I think I confused it with Luna Park for a time.)
Parking is $20 and they take only cash, so that's something to plan for if you're not in the habit of carrying cash.
The Roger Room, a speakeasy next door with murals that evoke Bemelman's at the Carlyle, is much fun. The night Mom and I went for a drink before the show, everyone drinking at the bar was over 45. I looked on Instagram and sometimes the crowd is young, heavily made up, and scantily clad. The type who goes out expressly to have something to post on "the 'gram."
There is no booze booze, just wine for purchase, so if you don't do wine, either stop by the Roger Room beforehand or pregame at home.
Age brings perspective. I used to come to this theater as a child, 1980 or 1981, when my friend's mom starred in a play called Jane Heights, a Wuthering Heights /Jane Eyre hybrid. We would come with Roseanna Huffman (RIP) and play backstage. I remember it seeing so glamorous--like a Broadway theater (which at the time I had never visited, an LA-raised girl who didn't set foot in NYC until 17, and who didn't go to her first Broadway play till her late 30s). And I have no recollection of the courtyard with bar to the side. The stage itself seemed so much bigger (because I was so much smaller!).
We didn't have time to eat before the show, so walked a block to to Norms, which is stuck in 1980 (music, decor, prices).
Mom and I split a tuna melt and onion rings to go. By the time we got home, it was 11:15. So decadent and fun. (I lived in the Bird Streets till 2; my grandma was on 8558 Holloway for years; my parents were on Hamilton, then Larrabee, and had date night at Dan Tana's in the 1960s. So this was a fun trip with Mom down memory lane.)
The seats are no worse than the Winter Garden on Broadway. But LA people are used to more leg room, another way in which life is just easier here.
P.S. I'm reading that the Grove was INSANE about COVID but we saw Zarna 5/3/23 and there was no vaccine check. No one was wearing a mask. So I guess they got over themselves, albeit too late. Broadway dropped mask mandante 6/30/22. Ahmanson, Taper held on till late fall, 2022. Geffen, too, I think.