00:00Where do celebrities go clubbing? What luxury hotel is worth your time?
00:04And where does Taylor Swift sneak off to their gym?
00:07Welcome to 48 Hours In, a podcast that takes you inside the most exciting cities.
00:12I'm Marcus from Man of Many, and today we're diving into one of the most legendary neighborhoods in LA, West
00:18Hollywood.
00:19Welcome to Hollywood. What's your dream?
00:22West Hollywood.
00:23This is one of the reasons I love West Hollywood. There's always an air of magic and surprise.
00:28It's a place where nightlife, wellness, and culture collide.
00:32But beyond the glitz and glamour, there's a side to West Hollywood that most of us never get to see.
00:37To help us uncover these secrets, I sat down with Jeff Morris, the Chief Marketing Officer of Visit West Hollywood.
00:43From hidden foodie gems to the best places to recover from a big night out,
00:46Jeff gave us the inside track on how to experience West Hollywood like a local.
00:51Let's get into it.
00:52Thank you for joining me today, mate.
00:54Wow, yeah, of course. Happy to be here.
00:56And we have to pack it all into 48 Hours?
00:58I mean, we can go longer. We can go longer.
01:01But look, it's great to have you here.
01:03Look, you're obviously an insider. You know what you're talking about.
01:06And so I wanted to start with the kind of dining options.
01:09Do you have any kind of lesser known spots that maybe the A-listers might hang out in?
01:14Yeah.
01:15So West Hollywood is interesting from the dining perspective because, I don't know if I've told you this,
01:20we call it the heart of Los Angeles, so it's really just two square miles or four square kilometers right
01:26in the center of L.A.
01:28And it packs a lot in.
01:29It does. I say it packs a punch.
01:31Tale of the Pup is a very famous—it's been there forever.
01:35It's actually in the shape of a hot dog right on Santa Monica Boulevard.
01:39I love hot dogs.
01:40So here's a really interesting story about that place.
01:42Tale of the Pup is in a building that was where the doors recorded L.A. Woman.
01:51Yeah, no way.
01:52And so you'll go in there, and there's literally a plaque on the wall,
01:54and Jim Morrison actually sang while he was there as well.
01:59The doors sang L.A. Woman in that spot.
02:02Yeah, so that's a little insider tip.
02:04This is why we've got you in here.
02:05That's right.
02:05You know all these things. Who's going to know that?
02:07Yeah, but, I mean, you talked a little bit about, you know, kind of like celebrities
02:11and where those, you know, the dining scene and—
02:14Where's someone like Taylor Swift or Johnny Depp or Robert Downey—where are they going?
02:20Taylor didn't call me before I came on the podcast.
02:23But if she had, I will tell you that she does work out in West Hollywood.
02:27Okay.
02:28Taylor Swift actually got ready for her Eras tour at the Dog Pound,
02:32which is a gym in the design district of West Hollywood.
02:36And her trainer, Kirk Myers, interesting guy.
02:39So if you come to West Hollywood, you can also work out at the Dog Pound.
02:43Yeah, brilliant.
02:43You know, I mean, we've gone from dining to working out really quickly.
02:46We have.
02:47But I'm just going to tell you, back to the dining thing, where you would see celebrities.
02:52The Sunset Tower Hotel is one of the most famous hotels on the Sunset Strip,
02:58and inside of the Sunset Tower is the Tower Bar.
03:00Okay.
03:01The Tower Bar is where to see and be seen.
03:03Like, I think the Sunset Strip and the kind of legendary things that have happened there
03:08and the legendary kind of nightclubs.
03:10Right.
03:10If we're—say, Jeff and I, we're going to West Hollywood, we're having a night out.
03:15Where are the kind of hottest spots to kind of go?
03:18On the Sunset Strip, there's the classic places, like the Whiskey-A-Go-Go, right?
03:24I mean, you have to go to the Whiskey just to have that experience and to be in there.
03:29And, you know, there's always, you know, new bands playing there.
03:32But you'll go—you'll show up one night and, you know, some famous group will be there.
03:38Some famous singer will be there.
03:40That's also true of the Roxy and of the Viper Room,
03:44which are just kind of all in that kind of triangle area there.
03:47Okay.
03:47So, Jeff, so far we've covered dining, nightlife.
03:51After a full day of all that kind of thing, where are we going to stay?
03:55What's your kind of recommendation there?
03:56You know, so in that two square miles or four square kilometers, there's 21 hotels.
04:02And there's probably, I don't know, 10 along the Sunset Strip
04:06and then some a little bit further down by Santa Monica Boulevard.
04:09Then we have another area of town called the Design District,
04:12which is more boutique shopping and galleries and stuff like that.
04:17Yeah, so if you're going to be in the Design District,
04:19there's a hotel called the Lapeer Hotel, which is a Kempton hotel,
04:22in a cool little walkable neighborhood right down the street
04:25from another hotspot restaurant called Craig's.
04:28Craig's?
04:29Which is another great celebrity spotting place, by the way.
04:31Okay, excellent.
04:32Craig's, you know there's always somebody there.
04:34So that's the Design District.
04:36You go a little bit further up and it's Santa Monica Boulevard,
04:39which they really call the Rainbow District.
04:42And the kind of LGBTQ kind of area, which is just bar after bar
04:47after outdoor kind of cafe kind of places.
04:50So it's very lively.
04:51And then if you go up to the Sunset Strip, that's all, you know,
04:54rock and roll and high-end hotels.
04:57There's a Pendry Hotel, an Edition Hotel.
04:59I talked about the Sunset Tower Hotel.
05:01Like I said, it's the heart of L.A.
05:03So people come to West Hollywood because they want to experience
05:05the best of Los Angeles.
05:07So, you know, you can have a great experience.
05:09You can go to a great show on the Sunset Strip.
05:12But then you might also want to spend the day at the beach.
05:14So it's 30 minutes, 20 minutes from Santa Monica Beach.
05:18Easy to get down there.
05:20So all of this stuff is really close by, which is why, you know,
05:23West Hollywood is kind of the best place to base a stay if you're coming to L.A.
05:27because you can have a great experience there.
05:30But you can also get out and see the rest of it.
05:33So, Jeff, before I let you go, before we let you go,
05:35you've provided great insights into how to spend 48 hours in West Hollywood.
05:41Three things that you would do personally if you had 48 hours
05:45to just do whatever you wanted in West Hollywood.
05:47Yeah, that's a really good question.
05:50So one of the things that we didn't really talk about too much
05:52is the rooftop pool culture.
05:56If it can be a culture.
05:57Yeah, right.
05:58I like the sound of that culture.
05:59So West Hollywood kind of sits at the, you know,
06:02the Sunset Strip is, we call it the penthouse of L.A.
06:04because it sits at the base of the Hollywood Hills,
06:07but it's still way above all of the basin of Los Angeles.
06:12So all of our hotels have rooftop pools with bars.
06:15And so, you know, you got to go spend some time, you know,
06:19there's a lot of great ones.
06:20I hate to even call one out, but the West Hollywood Edition
06:23at the corner of Sunset and Doheny has an amazing rooftop pool and bar.
06:29We talked about, you know, clubbing a little bit.
06:32Obviously, the classic clubs on the Sunset Strip are amazing,
06:34but also down on Santa Monica Boulevard on the very west end of town
06:39before you get to Beverly Hills is the Troubadour.
06:42And most people have heard of the Troubadour.
06:44Or it's where Elton John got his start in America.
06:48Yeah, that's right.
06:48So, you know, you got to go to some of those classic clubs
06:51where those rock bands or those rock stars kind of got their start.
06:55And then, obviously, a great celebrity dinner.
06:58I talked about the Sunset Tower, the Tower Bar or Craig's
07:01or one of those restaurants, you know, really phenomenal places.
07:04Well, Jeff, I really appreciate your time.
07:06I personally feel like I'm booking my trip to West Hollywood this afternoon.
07:12So I can't thank you enough.
07:14Thank you for joining us for 48 hours in West Hollywood.
07:18And, Jeff, thank you again.
07:20You're welcome.
07:21Good man.
07:23You
