Harkening back to the prohibition era of the '30s,

King Eddy’s Saloon –at the base of the 120-year old King Edward Hotel –was the central hub of illegal alcohol bootlegging. Part of an enormous network of underground tunnels sprawling the greater part of downtown Los Angeles, this 90-year old speakeasy made its home beneath the ground floor of a well known piano shop.

After prohibition ended in 1933 there was no longer use for the suburban dwelling as the upstairs was converted back into the “dive” we know and love today. The genuine and pretense-free demeanor of the patrons and staff seemed to draw an eclectically fashioned crowd –ranging from your local bar flies to exceptionally brooding novelists like John Fante and Charles Bukowski.

Today things aren’t very different. With Los Angeles’s longest standing liquor license King Eddy’s serves their Skid Row residents

The cheapest “muddy water” in town, whose ingredients are still a mystery to the masses. Managing to avoid downtown renovation projects that have blown through the city in the last 10 years (outstanding other historic monuments like Cole’s or Craby Joe’s) King Eddys still carries a glint of mystery, most likely rendered from the questionable history beneath its floorboards waiting for its chance to be unsheathed again.