The Venice Whaler

A single-story bar called the Crab Shell went up here in 1944 and counted the Beach Boys, the Doors and the Beatles among its regulars in the 1960s and '70s. A cast bronze diving helmet and a ship's wheel hang behind the upstairs bar, while the original Crab Shell Bar stays open downstairs for cocktails. The kitchen serves dressed-up bar food like beach mussels with kaffir lime cream and Kobe beef sliders with pineapple barbecue sauce, plus 14 beers on draft, eight of them from California breweries. Upstairs fills up on game days.