Disappointing news from Figueroa Street: Riviera Bar has closed. The announcement was short and sweet, with a list of people that owners Kevin and Gwynn Boss wished to thank; a note of appreciation (“We are grateful for all our loyal friends, customers, and purveyors. We love you and we will miss you. It’s been a pleasure serving you”); and a quote from Samuel Johnson (“There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.”) Cheers to that. The bar opened in July 2021.
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This is extremely sad news. What a great establishment. Is there something that can be done to save it? Seems so abrupt. I wish someone could take it over!
I’ll miss the welcoming atmosphere and excellent bar bites. We were there just last week and had no idea they were closing.
There was a popular bar at this location for decades. That is until the owner of the building decided they wanted to open their own bar in the same location and terminated the lease. The other bar moved a few blocks away and is doing fine. Funny how that works.
Riviera Bar was so incomparably better than Sportsman Lounge which has been and will continue to be one of the worst bars in that part of town
I do however miss their awesome neon sign.
That was a substantial remodel from the old Sportsman.
When looking at the usable customer space in so many places after a remodel from a long standing operation they lose so much to new code requirements.
Between the bathrooms, hallways, storage, kitchen and bar all built to code there’s so little space to actually generate revenue from customers.
I have no knowledge of why they closed. I did notice when they first opened how small the seating area was relative to the whole space. Thats a lot of overhead to carry.
There are so many restaurants if forced to remodel to current codes would lose half their seating. There seems to be a lot more restaurants doing counter ordering vs fullservice and of course prompting you to 18%, 20% or 22% gratuity. How many times have I left a large tip on my card out of convenience before actually getting my food and getting mediocre food or a really long wait.