Popular Gay Sports Bar Hi Tops Hits a Prime Stretch of Los Feliz Soon

West Hollywood bar and restaurant Hi Tops, a five-year veteran of LA’s wide-ranging LGBTQ scene, is making moves. The gay sports bar is expanding into some prime Los Feliz real estate soon, taking up residence on Vermont Avenue inside the former home of the Rockwell venue, just north of Hollywood Boulevard.

Angelenos will know Hi Tops as one of the more mellow hangouts in West Hollywood. The sporty space offers plenty of seating with views to near-endless televisions around the dining room, while the menu leans into pub-friendly “gourmet stadium food,” meaning soft pretzels, buffalo wings, giant trays of nachos, brunch items on weekends, and the usual array of burgers and fried chicken sandwiches to boot. Ramsey Musk (Accomplice Bar, Causita) will consult on the opening cocktail menu too, with plans for fun drinks and robust happy hour offerings. There will also be trivia nights and DJ setups, plus a monthly lesbian-specific night, among other programming.

Owners Jesse Woodward and Dana Gleim were keen to take the address at 1714 N. Vermont Avenue (just downstairs from Mírate) in part to fill a sports bar void for Los Feliz. For years the closed Public House across the street was the de facto football, baseball, and basketball hangout, but now fans can swing through to Hi Tops for patio dining on game day and beyond. The FreelandBuck-designed space should open by the end of September.

While Hi Tops is certainly going to be a big new addition to Los Feliz, it’s far from new itself. The first location opened in San Francisco more than a decade ago, with an expansion to West Hollywood in 2018. The LGBTQ scene has changed dramatically since even then, with a slew of lesbian-owned bars and events popping up all over LA. Hi Tops isn’t the only familiar gay bar with expansion plans, either; Roosterfish out of Venice is set to take over the closed former Pump in West Hollywood very soon.