The Arsenal

Parking: Valet
Live Music, DJ, Happy Hour Singles Bustling Outdoor Seating

At the height of the mid-century Cold War paranoia, opening a nightclub-restaurant with an "arsenal" theme -- fine dining and stiff drinks amid an impressive collection of deadly weaponry -- was the sort of idea whose very ridiculousness made it viable, a plan so crazy it worked. In fact, the Arsenal, which opened in the early '60s on Pico Boulevard and Bundy Drive, not only worked, it was a decided success and quickly became a beloved local institution.

Its dining room and bar remained open through three generations, long enough to witness the rise of glasnost and the fall of the Berlin Wall, and by the late 1990s the club had earned itself a respectable place in the pantheon of L.A. kitsch, right alongside Tail o' the Pup and Angelyne.

Not long ago, the Arsenal found new owners and a new life (not so very different from its old), thanks to some young entrepreneurs more than eager to carry on the grand tradition of burgers and bombs, steaks and shotguns. "I felt really strongly about making it feel like an original Los Angeles '50s sort of place, because we're from here and you just see so many buildings get renovated and ruined," developer Jillian Spaak says.

With the purchase, the building's new owners inherited the Arsenal's main dining area, the neighboring sports bar, an accompanying storage space and an enormous amount of rifles, pistols, daggers, swords and bombshells. "We took it all down and cleaned everything out back," Spaak says, "and I was terrified the police were going to come and arrest us. It really did look like an arsenal. It looked like we were planning to take over the city."

Gutting the interior and renovating from the ground up, Spaak has transformed the Arsenal into a sleek and sophisticated restaurant-bar that brings in the 21st century slick without sacrificing the slightly corny coziness of the original.

Before they disassembled the place, they took a lot of photos. "We tried to replicate the original look and then put it back together with new stuff," she says.

The original sports dive next door has been polished and spit-shined, emerging as a quietly upscale bar directly accessible from the restaurant for that after-dinner aperitif.

The new barroom also boasts what has to be, hands down, the best jukebox in the city, a beautifully varied collection that fearlessly matches "Tanya Tucker's Greatest Hits" with Public Enemy's "Fear of a Black Planet."

Just outside the bar, the building's cinderblock storage space has been transformed into a swank smoking lounge, its ceiling removed to reveal a few swaying palms and the occasional low-flying arrival to Santa Monica Airport.

The Arsenal is old made wonderfully new again, without sacrificing the undeniable charm of an evening spent in a nightspot more Army base than anything else.

"Our goal," Spaak says, "was to make it into a place where you can come and have a really good cocktail and good food in an atmosphere that's comfortable, hip but not attitude riddled."

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