Dinner House M is closing in June (the hipster apocalypse is nigh)
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Whether or not the world ends this Saturday, for Echo Parkers with an ear for great music and a bad idea in their heads around 1:45 a.m., a far greater loss is looming next month.
According to a headline on its website, Dinner House M, the Japanese jazz lounge seemingly ripped from Michael Mann’s most vivid fantasies of a location for a shootout scene, is closing June 8.
Founded in 1987 by the jazz singer Miki Saito and her sister Maya, the Historic Filipinotown club had became a favorite prowling ground for nightlife vampires and the neighborhood’s musician-industrial-complex for its surreal ‘80s-noir mirror décor, off-the-grid location and, shall we say unorthodox entry policies. Miki worked the door with a mix of neighborhood bonhomie and occasional cutting disapproval (which side you got generally depended on how late you were trying to get in).
And while it routinely presented jazz performances in the earlier hours, on late nights the club hosted some surprisingly ambitious DJs (we fondly remember a stint when Ashland Mines from the late, lamented Wildness spun deconstructed dance music on Wednesdays and booker Jennifer Tefft of the Satellite spun girl-group pop and old r&b jams).
We’ve left messages with Dinner House M to learn more about why it’s shutting or what’s coming next, and will update as necessary. (And on a personal note: While the credit card won’t miss those $8 whiskey-sodas served in plastic cups the size of dentists’ mouthwash samples, Dinner House M is quite literally the closest point of retail to my Angeleno Heights apartment, and has spurred dozens of very long nights and fuzzy mornings. There’s a sendoff party on June 8 and I’ll be there, quietly crying into a warm beer or seven.) RELATED:
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-- August Brown
