A New Sports Bar With a Big Happy Hour Hits a Familiar Space in Studio City

There’s new life at the Barrel and Ashes space in Studio City this weekend. The two-story standalone building, formerly home to chef Timothy Hollingsworth’s barbecue restaurant, has now flipped into a Mexican-leaning sports bar outlet named Banditos.

If the name Banditos sounds familiar, that’s because the first iteration of the brand was down on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard near USC’s Coliseum. Now owner Anat Escher has moved the show up to 11801 Ventura Boulevard, with televisions showing games on the ground floor and lots of tacos, tequila, and craft beer on tap. Much like Escher’s other sports bar project, Silver Lake’s Trophy Wife, expect a prodigious happy hour too, with two-for-one drinks from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. most days of the week.

What’s more, Escher tells Eater that the second floor of the new Banditos will act as a more laid-back lounge, pulling in leafy plants, dark woods, and a Havana vibe while also offering stiff cocktails and live music on the weekends. As for the former tenant Barrel & Ashes, that Texas-inspired barbecue spot lasted a good five years before closing in the fall of 2019; Hollingsworth, of course, can still be found most nights at Otium in Downtown.

The new Banditos is open now, just in time for a weekend filled with sports, from the NFL to college football to the Dodgers battling the Atlanta Braves in the NLCS.

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