Speak Easy Cocktail

«You’ve got a drinking problem? Bring it here.»
The owner spoke those words to me before I walked in for the first time. This place exists outside of itself. Walking in, you’d think you’ve gone back in time, or perhaps stumbled onto a secret embassy for the United Kingdom.
*side note, I once had a conversation w/​a gentleman from Scotland who gave me a cigar and invited me over to watch John Wayne movies while his wife would make us meat. I politely declined, but we did smoke cigars.
You’re not going to find the best beers or drinks (they don’t have taps), but that’s not why you go there. My friend, you go there on saturdays for the karaōke. It starts at 9pm and it’s free (throw in a couple bucks for Alex, the MC). You’ll have the regular singers who, you know, sing the same songs every week. But then, occasionally, you’ll see people walk in who’ve never been there before. They all have the same reaction. They stop and think really hard about leaving. They usually stay.
The crowd is like an airport. Old, young, all races and creeds. It’s great. It’s really great. You don’t even have to sing. Just go on a saturday night and enjoy the show.

This place is amazing. The owner is the nicest man I’ve eve my, the servers are friendly as can be. Bee around for years and it’s obvious why. Patrons and staff are the best!!!

If I could I would give this place 0 stars. Long story short I came in on a double date a very random night but we were open minded and hoping for a great night! Yet it was the most horrible bar experience I ever had. I told myself not to be so sensitive when the bartender flings coasters at us when seated. But when she grabs my lime with her hands and walks it over to me in her hand — I was done. Then she put it on… the coaster for me. How unsanitary? But wait for it she does it a second time giving my sister her lime with her hands — oh but she put hers on a napkin. Probably because the look I gave her when she put my lime on a coaster. To top the evening off the lady makes up prices as she goes. She told my sister her order would be $ 15 then changed it to $ 17 when she brought her the change. Needless to say we drank our drinks (left the dirty limes on the bar) and left. No need to argue or ask for anything more… just leave and warn others not to wast their time.

I drove from Torrance to check this place out & I am so very glad I did. Very fun atmosphere during karaōke on Saturday nights! Lots of singers, awesome Kj Alex Kitay from Singing for my Supper Entertainment. Everyone is friendly & plenty of screens so the whole room can sing along. Good drinks. Fast service from the helpful bartenders. Nice set up in the bar with comfy booths. So happy to have found a new place to hang out & make new friends. I will be back soon!

Local dive bar with two pool tables, fast service, cheap drinks and its über close to my residence. You can play any song you want and it’s never crowed! I enjoy spending time here!

Stiff cheap drinks, friendly people, open during the day. Do you need more of a sell?

Karaōke on Saturdays till 1am, super clean fantastic place to be. Drinks are at a great price, fun atmosphere. I am so impressed by how clean this place is. I can’t wait to spend my birthday here. This is a great spot for a private party.

This place is a great local dive bar. If you are looking for fancy beers or a sweet place to instagram, forget it. This is just basic people enjoying basic drinks with a good vibe. Sports typically play on the TV sets and the staff is super friendly. A great place to grab a cheap drink or three if you are south of the 10.

They have ice cold Miller High Life. How many local bars can claim that? It’s the reason why I’m going to have my birthday gathering here. Gotta look out for #1.

Woooow cheap drinks. If you want to get drunk come here. So chill, nice people everyone is having fun.
Don’t get me wrong this isn’t you typical Santa Monica pub this is a little dive bar where the locals come. So you wont pick up girls here… if you even see a female here it would be surprising. But if you want to get some drinks and sit with some friends and just relax this place is a pretty good choice.

Not a dive bar. I like the quiet atmosphere, could be darker. Seriously $ 5 for a bud light?

I feel like the name «Speak Easy» is a little misleading… or perhaps we just hold different definitions? In my opinion, this is a good old fashioned, dark, windowless dive bar. And here was my take on the crowd: half were 21 – 35 and half were 60 – 75. Wowzers!
1 Star for being a classic dive bar
1 Star for very decently priced cocktails
1 Star for ample parking and a surprisingly lovely female restroom
Minus 2 stars because we came here on a Saturday night for karaōke… I mean, why bother? Is the business hurting? Are they trying to draw in a younger, hipper crowd? I honestly don’t get it. There is no real defined area for karaōke, the singer is squeezed in between pool tables, and quite honestly, no one cares that it’s going on in the background. The KJ’s equipment is so jank, he’s running the system off of a windows computer from 2002, I swear. After waiting a good hour, I personally had an extra bad experience when I got up to sing that I truly hope is not the norm. I could tell within seconds the KJ lacked experience and professionalism, so I gracefully let it slide. But I know others would have raised hell. We simply just won’t be going back.

Yes, yes and yes.

They really go for the speakeasy vibe here
nothing much to say other than try this place out

Easy parking!
It smells musty, there’s no huge selection of microbrewers, and some seats are permanently reserved for regulars. Plenty of parking in a «roomy» parking lot. The bartender, she cusses like a Sailor. And I know Sailor cussing!
You’ll never love anything so much. A great place to have a quiet conversation, a great place to have a drink to relax after the day. No dumb theme bar here, a true neighborhood hang out.
And they play 4 types of music. Country. Western. Rock. And silence.
You don’t come here with a date to impress, you don’t come here with clients from out of town. You come here to just be normal. We should all do that more often.

This bar has all you are looking for if you’re looking for a good affordable drink in Santa Monica. I’ve been here twice and the daytime bartender is a very nice Scottish lady who is easy to talk to and always makes sure your drink is full. The place has a full bar some choice domestics and imports for 4 – 6 dollars as well as 2 pool tables that shoot pretty straight:)

Showed up here on a random Sunday afternoon. It was really hot out, we had just eaten lunch, and the original plan was to goto Daily Pint for a beer. Guess what, Daily Pint opens at 2pm, and it was like 12:30pm, so we had 90min to kill. Needing somewhere to hang out, found this place a few blocks away so we walked here.
With a name like Speak Easy Cocktail, I was expecting something a little more high class, but it was just a friendly-​ish dive bar. We showed up there, and there were a bunch of old guys who looked like they were regulars who were not very friendly towards 2 hipster looking guys who look like we’re in our 20s showing up and interrupting their Sunday noon hangout spot. We tried to sit down at what we thought was an empty bar seat but then some seniors at the pool table ran back and were like, «YOU GUYS NEED TO FIND SOMEWHERE ELSE TO SIT»…
Uhhh… ok, no big deal. So we moved to the end of the bar. The bartender just laughed them off as grumpy old men and served us with a smile. The lady was extremely friendly. Not really wanting to drink the standard macro stuff, I noticed they had a bunch of Lagunitas IPA boxes near the trash so I was like can I get one of those?
She was like, what’s a lagunitas??? I then pointed to the empty box, and she was like… OHH. LEMME DIG AROUND HERE. Sure enough, she found where they were and she was like, «ohhhh these must be new». Lol. at least they’ll be semi-​fresh then? Anyways, the beers were only $ 3 each, so it was a deal. She was really friendly too.
Anyways, it was a decent dive bar, and a total random find. Odds of me coming back are almost nil, but it is what it is :)

Traditional dive bar. Pool, Karaōke days, etc. But the beer prices weren’t really on par with a dive bar for me– kinda pricey. Pretty varied crowd which is always a good sign of a local place.
Not very clean, contrary to another reviewer.

A very classic dive bar with particularly good service. Ruth is very sweet and makes great drinks so says the ladies I was with, plus she has a very cute accent! I had a double J and it was stiff as heck. loved it!
Great juke on deck, someone was playing really good stuff on it.

This place is super shady when you get here early.
My friends and I came here to hang out during Thanksgiving. We had a ton of fun. Two of my friends got here before me and they could have sworn the music stopped and the whole bar was staring at them when they walked in. They thought I was playing a joke on them by sending them there.
Later on in the night there were a ton of people. We had a ton of fun hanging out here, drinking cheep beers and playing pool! There were actually a few expert pool players already there.
The bar easily handled the big group of people, as well as our big group of friends. Everyone had a ton of fun! I would come back!