The festivities began at The Association in downtown Los Angeles where guests were treated to a crash course on mixing cocktails – one of them being my favorite, an Old Fashioned with a twist of orange peel. The bartender demonstrated how to flame a citrus peel. You begin by taking an orange peel, and warming up the citrus oils by placing a flame near the peel. When you’re ready, separate your flame from the peel, and squeeze the orange peel over the flame for a spark that will entertain guests (and also make it look like you know what you’re doing behind the bar). This process will caramelize the citrus oils and give you a subtle fragrance for your drink.
We then moved on to the Line Hotel in Koreatown where the girls dined at Openaire. This restaurant is poolside at the Line Hotel and is great year-round since it’s in the greenhouse and insulated from the elements. It’s an especially fun brunch spot during the day. Their food menu is delicious and we had a pre-fixe menu for this event. Before the final stop of the evening, the girls had a hair and makeup makeover to be in line with the 80’s theme for Breakroom 86. Now they were ready for the final stop of the evening – scrunchies, bangles and all.
Breakroom 86 is a fun venue that you can enter by way of a loading dock off the side of the hotel. Once inside, you walk down the hallway and the venue is hidden behind the door of a vending machine. This is the entry into the karaoke bar where there’s a full bar with separate private rooms for karaoke. The main bar has a hidden stage behind the back bar that often entertains Michael Jackson impersonators and other live entertainment. It’s a fun, boozy, throwback scene that brings you back to childhood days of VHS tapes (which is how their menus are presented), arcade games (you can find pac man games here), and telephone booths – the ones where you actually had to put in coins to operate.
There’s even an ice cream truck outside that serves alcohol-infused frozen bars, Funyuns, Twinkies, you name it. If the Houston Brothers didn’t run a hospitality nightlife company, I could see them as prop masters on movie sets, sourcing items for shows like “Stranger Things” (I mean, where did they find those 80’s era Pepsi cans??).
A newer venue that the Houston Brothers launched before the pandemic, also at the Line Hotel, is the 70’s themed Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Disco-Deco dreamscape entered into behind the “ATM Machines” located at the side of the hotel. Though not as fun as Breakroom 86 IMHO, this venue has a disco ball (of course), a light up dance floor (cue John Travolta circa Saturday Night Fever), and roller skaters topped off with great mixologists.
You can always count on the Houston Brothers to entertain a lively and fun group!
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