What does a cocktail cost in West Hollywood this fall? The new places have been unusually direct about it. At the revived Hart and the Hunter on Melrose, nothing on the cocktail list costs more than $15. At First Of All on Santa Monica Boulevard, the new dinner bar prices its cocktails at $15. At Ten Cash Bar, the answer is $10 for a well drink, as long as you pay in cash. And at The Front Porch in the Rainbow District, the main draw is coffee at 7 a.m.
That pricing grew out of a hard season. The rooms that closed along the boulevard this summer and fall were evening places with long runs. The places opening in their wake are built around a lower bill and, in most cases, earlier hours.
Three long runs ended between July and September
Connie & Ted's, Michael Cimarusti's seafood restaurant at 8171 Santa Monica Boulevard, closed in early July after 13 years. Eater LA's July closings roundup gives the last day as July 1. A separate Eater report from later that month says July 3.
Employees Only opened in 2018 as a New York transplant on Santa Monica Boulevard, just west of Fairfax. It served its final cocktail on Sunday, September 27. Managing partner Tom Sopit gave Eater LA an unusually candid explanation:
"It wasn't really one thing that killed us. It was death by a thousand cuts. West Hollywood raising the minimum wage, required paid time-off for workers, the cost of goods going up, inflation, vandals damaging an air conditioning unit last year, drinking trends changing, and GLP-1s."
Up on the Strip, Sushiya on Sunset closed at the end of September. It had opened in 1988, and Eater LA described it as one of the region's less formal sushi spots. None of the sources we reviewed name a new tenant for any of the three spaces.
Sopit's list reads like a summary of what the new operators are pricing around. Labor and goods cost more. Drinking habits have changed. A bar that depends on a high-priced late round has less room for error than it did in 2018.
The new ceiling is fifteen dollars
The openings that followed take on the price problem first. Here is how the fall arrivals compare, using hours and prices from their launch coverage.
| Place | Address | Hours as reported | Drink pricing as reported |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Hart and the Hunter | 7950 Melrose Ave. | Daily, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. | Cocktails no more than $15; $12 cocktails at happy hour, 1 to 3 p.m. |
| First Of All, dinner service | 8200 Santa Monica Blvd. | Wed. to Sun., 5 to 10 p.m. | $15 cocktails |
| Ten Cash Bar | 7746 Santa Monica Blvd. | Nightly until 2 a.m.; happy hour 5 to 7 p.m. | $10 well drinks, paid in cash |
| The Front Porch | 8735 Santa Monica Blvd. | 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. | Specialty coffee, baked goods |
The Hart and the Hunter's managing director of culinary, James Siao, told Eater LA the pricing was intentional. "I wanted to be reasonable and approachable with the food, but also the cocktails," he said, "with cocktails at $15, in a market that has seen a big swing in cocktail pricing."
First Of All set its new dinner menu at the same level. WEHO Times reports that most entrées currently run $20 to $34, and bar director Ryan Holden's tequila- and mezcal-heavy list holds at $15. The same review calls it a place where dinner doesn't have to be "reserved for a special occasion."
Even Blondie, the Australian-inspired rooftop at 8457 Melrose Avenue that Eater LA reviewed in July, tops out its cocktail list at $17. Across the new openings with a bar, $15 has become the reference point.
The hours moved earlier, too
On Melrose and in the Rainbow District, the new openings also keep earlier hours.
The Hart and the Hunter first ran from 2012 to 2021 as a Southern-influenced dinner restaurant inside the Palihotel Melrose. It returned to the same corner of Hayworth and Melrose on September 30, and this time it serves brunch only, daily from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. The space had been Blue Daisy Melrose in between, and that tenant kept much of the original Hart and the Hunter fit-out. The return needed only touch-ups, new art and new fixtures. The biscuit with chile butter is back. On weekdays from noon to 3 p.m., there is a $30 menu with a biscuit, an entrée, a salad and a non-alcoholic drink. Siao also plans to bring back the monthly shrimp boils on the patio.
The Front Porch took over the former Coffee Bean at Santa Monica Boulevard and Hancock Avenue, a location that had been a coffee shop for decades. Men's Health Foundation operates it. It soft-opened on Wednesday, September 30, and a ribbon-cutting grand opening is scheduled for October 14. In an interview with WEHO Times, Dr. Anthony Mills tied the idea to the loss of Café D'Etoile and the closure of the "Big Gay Starbucks." He described a place where friends could catch up over coffee "not necessarily to go and dance." The case shows chocolate cake, lemon-blueberry cake, scones, banana bread and a breakfast burrito, with cinnamon rolls on Saturdays and Sundays. A larger menu is planned once the kitchen renovation is finished.
Back on Melrose, Coco Papaya is now open at 8448 Melrose Avenue with canned juices, smoothies and bowls. That is one more daytime counter on a stretch that has picked up several this season.
The Front Porch gives the clearest evidence of the shift. In the Rainbow District, a daytime gathering place is opening at a time when Mills says people mostly meet "when the sun goes down."
Late nights still have takers, at a lower price
Not every new opening keeps daytime hours, and the exceptions still follow the pricing pattern.
First Of All started out serving breakfast, brunch and lunch. Restaurateur Mike Fahim, who is also behind Beachwood Cafe, Sotta and Sidewalk Grill, has now added dinner Wednesday through Sunday. Executive chef Arturo Quesada built the menu around enchiladas, fajitas, braised short ribs, stuffed poblanos and swordfish in tomato sauce. It is a block west of Crescent Heights and hard to miss because of its pink exterior.
Ten Cash Bar is the late-night exception. It appears in the October 8, 2026 edition of The Infatuation's new openings guide, which covers the past three months. The guide describes a speakeasy from the Blue Collar team that you enter by dialing the red payphone next to Bar Lubitsch at 7746 Santa Monica Boulevard. It has Art Deco paintings and crystal chandeliers, a happy hour from 5 to 7 p.m., and it stays open every night until 2 a.m. The bar is named after its best deal. Ten Cash Bar opened on the same eastern stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard where Employees Only closed, and its name is a price.
So late nights are still part of the plan on the boulevard. The new operators are betting that late nights will hold up if the round costs less.
One Sunset address is still waiting
The July 16 rupture of a 36-inch water main at Sunset Boulevard and Holloway Drive closed Sunset for more than a week. The City reopened the road on Friday, July 24, at about 11 p.m. with temporary paving, and the dates for permanent restoration had not been set as of that update. Dialog Cafe sits at that intersection, and the Los Angeles Times reported it closed indefinitely after the flooding, with a temporary relocation under consideration. We could not confirm a reopening or a new location as of mid-October, so check the café's own channels before making the walk.
The boulevard itself is the cheapest table this fall
The City's calendar for the rest of the season follows the same logic as the openings, and these two dates cost nothing to attend.
- Halloween Carnaval, Saturday, October 31, 6 to 11 p.m. The free event takes over Santa Monica Boulevard between N. Doheny Drive and N. La Cienega Boulevard, which runs right past The Front Porch's corner at Hancock. The City lists street closures on Santa Monica, Robertson and San Vicente boulevards, so plan any driving that evening around them.
- Live On Sunset, Saturday, November 14. The free concert closes Sunset between Doheny Drive and San Vicente Boulevard. Sheryl Crow headlines, and the announced lineup also includes Local Natives and Empress Of, according to WEHO Times.
The two weeks between those dates work well for a fall routine built from the new places. You could start with coffee at The Front Porch before 9, have the biscuit and the $30 weekday lunch at the Hart and the Hunter, eat an early dinner at First Of All, and, for anyone still out after 10, finish with a cash round behind the payphone on Santa Monica Boulevard.
At Neyshia Go, we follow these address changes as closely as we follow sales, because which corners fill and which stay dark shapes daily life on a West Hollywood block. If you would like to talk through what this fall's openings mean for a particular street or building, Schedule a Confidential Consultation with The Go Group.
