The Three Clubs from “Swingers”

Besides a great coffee shop, there’s pretty much nothing I love more than an unpretentious bar/restaurant that boasts a retro vibe (as evidenced here, here, here, here, here, and here).  Add in a filming location element and I am completely smitten!  One that had been on my To-Stalk List for what seemed like eons was The Three Clubs in Hollywood, an onscreen maven most famous for its appearance in the 1996 indie hit Swingers.  For whatever reason, though, I kept failing to make it over there – until August 2016, that is, when a good friend who worked on the premises hooked me up with a private tour of the place.  I was immediately taken with the bar’s ‘50s aura.  Walking inside feels like stepping into a Mad Men episode!  Somehow, I never got around to blogging about it, though, which I did not realize until going through my Lightroom library the other day.  So I figured it was high time I do so.

The Three Clubs is a longtime stalwart in the Hollywood bar scene.  Established by nightclub impresarios Marc Smith and Matthew Webb on December 27th, 1991 in a former strip mall dive bar near the corner of Santa Monica and Vine, the watering hole has been going strong for more than two and a half decades!

The interior, designed by Marc himself, is largely influenced by Sin City, the Golden Age of Hollywood, and Ol’ Blue Eyes.  As Smith told LAist in a 2017 article, “We liked Vegas, we were very into Frank Sinatra.  I have to thank the Rat Pack crew for being very pivotal in that world.  I had a ‘”‘”’66 T-bird, a ‘”‘”’66 Triumph.  We just wanted old things.  It was kind of old Hollywood.”  With décor elements including tucked-away leather banquettes, wooden wainscoting, and a rock-encrusted doorway, the retro aesthetic is undeniable.  The Three Clubs is comprised of two very distinct rooms – the main area, dubbed “the Lounge” (pictured below), is an intimate, low-lit space featuring a large mahogany and leather bar, a black sparkly ceiling, and what the watering hole’s official website calls “casino-style carpeting.”

The Back Bar (pictured below) is a more open space with a small wooden bar, a central stage, raised seating areas, and a disco ball.

Even the cocktail menu was retro-inspired, long before drinking vespers, old fashioneds, and Manhattans was considered cool.  As Smith was quoted telling LAist, “I remember talking to a magazine writer about [serving martinis at my lounge] and she was like, ‘”‘”‘What do you mean?  That sounds really boring, like [a place] my parents went to.  Are you sure?'”‘”‘”  The novel concept took, though, and crowds were soon flocking to the place.

The Three Clubs became a celebrity draw from the get-go, as well.  Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn were regulars during its early days – which is how the taproom wound up being featured in Swingers – and are still known to pop in today.  Renee Zellweger worked for a time as a bar-back there.  And Quentin Tarantino, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Cruise, Emily Osment, Steven Spielberg, Jay Leno, and Billy Idol have also all been spotted on the premises.

The Three Clubs actually pops up twice, portraying two different spots, in Swingers.  Toward the beginning of the movie, the Back Bar masks as the Bamboo Lounge, the tiki-themed watering hole said to be located inside the Stardust Resort and Casino where Mike (Favreau) and Trent (Vaughn) meet up with Lisa (Katherine Kendall) and Christy (Deena Martin) after a night of gambling in Las Vegas.  The space looks quite a bit different in the scene than it does in real life thanks to a large amount of Hawaiian-themed set dressing that was brought in for the shoot.

Later in the film, the Lounge appears as the bustling interior of The Room, where Mike, Rob (Ron Livingston), and Charles (Alex Désert) assemble before heading to a party in the hills.

Swingers is hardly the only production to have utilized The Three Clubs over the years.

In the Season 2 finale of Mad Men titled “Meditations in an Emergency,” which aired in 2008, a newly pregnant Betty Draper (January Jones) heads to The Three Clubs after doing some shopping and winds up having a tryst with a stranger in the bar’s back office.

Andy (Josh Cooke) pops into The Three Clubs where he meets singer Vanessa (Odette Annable) at the beginning of the 2010 comedy Group Sex.

Val (Al Pacino) and Doc (Christopher Walken) grab drinks at The Three Clubs in 2012’s Stand Up Guys.

In the Season 6 episode of Castle titled “For Better or Worse,” which aired in 2014, The Three Clubs portrays two spots.  The Lounge first pops up as Tildy’s Tavern where Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) goes looking for her college love, Rogan O’Leary (Eddie McClintock), and gets him to sign divorce papers.

The Back Bar later plays the Roadhouse strip club where Kate and Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) track down a stripper named Sapphire (Sarah Karges).  Both spaces were dressed heavily for the shoot and are therefore not very recognizable from their appearances in the episode.

Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young) and Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza) are interviewed by Lorraine (Erica Piccininni) at The Three Clubs in the 2014 biopic Jersey Boys.

The bar also supposedly pops up in Parks and Recreation, How to Get Away with Murder, Angie Tribeca, FlashForward, and Private Practice, but I am unsure of which episodes in particular.  If anyone happens to know, please fill me in.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Three Clubs, from Swingers, is located at 1123 Vine Street in Hollywood.  You can visit the bar’s official website here.  The watering hole is open from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. daily.

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