A bar shaped like a ship, parked a short walk from the Pacific Coast Highway, is not subtle. It does not intend to be. At 112 West Channel Road in Santa Monica Canyon the bow juts over the pavement, there are portholes down the side, and since a soft opening on 13 August 2026 the sign has said Friendship Bar again.
A speakeasy, a gay bar and a novel
The history starts in the 1920s with Doc Law, who kept a soda shop and pharmacy here and a Prohibition speakeasy. In the 1930s it became Doc Law's Friendship Cafe, then the S.S. Friendship Bar, which poured for decades. By the 1950s it had become a gay bar. Christopher Isherwood, who lived in the canyon and called it his western Greenwich Village, wrote a version of it into A Single Man in 1964 as the Starboard Side. Later it became The Hideout, then Shorebar, a clubbier room from the h.wood Group with a members-only upstairs lounge.
The ship has been kept and given a deeper keel.
The neighbourhood has form here. The S.S. Friendship stood a few doors along from the Golden Bull with a boat's bow built into its facade, and Santa Monica Canyon was one of the few places around Los Angeles with open gay life before the 1960s, far from the studio system. The ship was never an accident of architecture. It was a landmark for a community that needed one.
The bartender next door
Daniel Baker used to tend bar at The Golden Bull, half a block along Channel Road, and had tried to buy the Shorebar space years earlier. He and business partner Michael Mohamed signed a long-term lease in June 2026. Neither has owned a bar before. Baker wants a locals' room where people can hang out and eat, something he says the area needs after the fires and the pandemic.
Lanterns and red velvet
The ship stays and the keel deepens. Dark blue and white over dark floors, a shiplap bar, alcove booths glowing under nautical lanterns, a back deck, exposed ducting and old photographs on the walls. Baker has added a stage, and red velvet curtains turn the main room into something between a lounge and a supper club. Upstairs, the former members-only lounge becomes a private events room. Early evenings are mellow and friendly, with the room dimmer and livelier later and the pours quicker once the DJ arrives. The target is plain: a locals' bar for the canyon.
What to drink
The drinks list is short, and the bar does not pretend otherwise. The list is classics: martinis and manhattans, wine, and the bottle the house calls the champagne of beers. Food is bar snacks for now, with a fuller menu promised. The week supplies the variety. Thursday is Super Soul Thursdays with the singer Jason Joseph. The stage carries live music, covering jazz and soulful piano. Saturday is a DJ playing the 1980s all night. Sunday has brought drag nights for good causes. Monday is industry night, for bartenders and cooks who spend the weekend on the other side of the counter. Doors open Thursday to Monday.
Order a martini in one of the lantern booths first. It is the drink the room was built to hold.
One hedge: the stylish glassware should not mislead anyone. This is a neighbourhood bar focused on accessibility, not a destination cocktail room, and there is no full kitchen yet.
Go when the sun has just dropped into the ocean across the highway and the lanterns are the brightest thing on Channel Road.
A neighbourhood bar is a modest ambition for a building with this much history. The ship has been through worse.
- The vibe
- Ship-prow canyon landmark: lantern booths, red velvet, shiplap bar, back deck, stage.
- The food
- Bar snacks for now; a fuller menu is promised.
- The drink
- Martinis and manhattans, wine, and the house champagne of beers.
- A tip
- Early evening is mellow, later livelier; Thursday soul, Saturday 1980s DJ, Monday industry night.
