The Happiest Hour

I trust that by now you’ve all split a cheeseburger at Nick & Stef’s after work. In a pinch, you know the $1.99 version at McCormick & Schmick’s will do, though that’s a little like wanting Dr Pepper and saying yes to Mr. Pibb. But do you know the Boom Boom Room? If you’re guessing Laguna Beach, take note: I live in East L.A. and have never owned a car, so going to the O.C. for martinis is not in this girl’s cards. I’m talking local landmark, one bus ride from downtown: the No. 68 to Monterey Park.

Nattily dressed “Big Al,� with a Ben Turpin mustache, pilots the karaoke machine. A woman at the bar sips her mai tai and pores over People. On the TV, the game is on. Some game. Somewhere. No one is singing--not yet. A man in a Santana T-shirt shakes my hand. “First-timer?� he asks. “Nah, man, I’ve been coming here since the ‘70s with my Afro and fake ID.� “Oh yeah,� he says, “I remember you.�

The Venice Room (known mysteriously as the Boom Boom Room) is right out of Scorsese’s “Mean Streets.� You keep waiting for Johnny Boy Civello’s manic grin to surface between the vintage gondola oil paintings and the brand-new video poker machines. Owner Salvatore Altadonna tells me the place opened in 1957 and soon became the “Home of the Cook Your Own Steak.� Jude Cairo, the longtime server/hostess/supervising chef/therapist/bouncer, recounts the time 78 steaks were sold in a single evening.

But history is made every night. A substitute Sunday school teacher emerges from a red vinyl booth and belts out a version of “At Last� that would make Etta James blush. A few of the women at the bar sing along--all of us, it seems, pausing at the same moment, silently sending a particular verse out to someone maybe not close enough to hear it.

Outside, the freeway hums with cars moving from high-rise cubicle to Diamond Bar cul-de-sac and from Chino Hills to graveyard shift. Inside, the regulars have hit their marks. We know it’s always 5 o’clock somewhere. And we’re always here.

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The Venice Room, 2428 S. Garfield Ave., Monterey Park; (323) 722-3075