• Details: Singles
• Hours:
  Open 8 p.m.-2 a.m.
  seven days a week.

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Times Description

Bars like the Blu Monkey Lounge don't exist on the east side of Hollywood. Not with swanky Moroccan décor, including two elevated areas on either end of the bar with plush red sofas, throw pillows and carpeting. Not with sofa benches along the main floor. Not with a serene smoking patio reminiscent of the outside garden at New York's former Museum of Modern Art, or with a DJ booth set up, on this night, behind the couches in the center of the room.

No, bars like the Blu Monkey Lounge reside in West Hollywood, or maybe they've moved as far east as the now decidedly trendy Cahuenga Corridor, but not at Hollywood and Western, a few doors down from a Thai Fast Food stand that boasts a giant hot dog on the top.

However, that's where you'll find the Blu Monkey, thanks to the vision of four partners: brothers Vincenzo and Tony Moschella, John Seffker and Salvatore Lampasona.

"I saw Hollywood moving east," says Vincenzo, who formerly ran Monte Cristo in L.A. and also owns a club in Rome.

"In Los Feliz we have $4-million and $5-million homes, so I thought it was the right space. Look what happened to Old Town Pasadena — 20 years back, [the corner of] Colorado and Fair Oaks was full of prostitutes and drugs, now it is the hip place to be."

Indeed, if you build it, they will come. Blu Monkey, whose interior was designed by Mary O'Grady (of the Figueroa Hotel), opened in December with several warmup events for friends and family.

Now on Saturday nights, the venue sometimes has a line outside by 8:30.

It's become a hot spot for DJs, and the intimate space has hosted parties for hip-hop diva Missy Elliott and Blink-182's Travis Barker, among others.

Even the owners have been surprised, albeit pleasantly, by the instant success of the lounge. "We have this conversation all the time. 'Wow. What are we doing right?' " Tony says.

Seffker does have a theory on the venue's popularity. "It's word of mouth. That's really what it came down to," he says. "Everybody told everybody else, and it just spread really, really quick. The right people came in, we booked some parties early on, and those parties turned into just a mass spread-of-word."

But Hollywood is littered with trendy spots competing to lure stars, their entourages and the wannabe glamorous. How Blu Monkey will fare against the glitter ravenous depends on whether it can retain its warm vibe.

Whether you enter through the front, from Hollywood Boulevard or through the back entrance where the parking lot is, there is no cover.