Bernal’s Best 24 Hour Donut Shop and Cocktail Bar Invades FiDi

/ Todd_Lappin

Reader Sarah snapped this photo of a painting that hangs inside the lobby of 555 California — aka The Bank of America Building. Perhaps it was put there to remind the suits who work in 555 Cali what life is like on the gritty side of the tracks? Meanwhile, I confess that the Silver Crest is sufficiently gritty that I have yet to cross it off my “Meaning to Try Someday” list. Stay tuned.

PHOTO: Courtesy of Reader Sarah

26 thoughts on “Bernal’s Best 24 Hour Donut Shop and Cocktail Bar Invades FiDi”

  1. The BofA building rotates their artwork about every 6 weeks so I doubt there was any intended message. 🙂

  3. what pitty i been there yrs ago when i was snall child my uncle took there saturday morning its was a treat now yu have the fast foods/ and fast pace , fast life pace now i still surprise its still there with the fast foods rest. across streets and near bye. when yu decide to go one day tell me about it.

  4. Oh, I look forward to your review of that place! I’ve found myself driving by there many times after midnight (purely innocent… I swear) and have always been tempted to go in. But it always looked so empty, and a little spooky…. like a David Lynch movie.

  6. I should add the following (information derived from the postcard that I grabbed on my way out of the building):
    – The artist is Randy Beckelheimer
    – The exhibition runs in the B of A Building lobby until August 6
    – The artist is represented by ArtZone 461 Gallery on Valencia
    – You can own this painting (entitled HPS-22) for a mere $15K: http://artzone461.com/beckelheimer/randy-1.html

    Alternatively, you could join the Bernalwood Explorers’ outing to the Silver Crest and take a photo using your Hipstamatic app.

  7. donuts — very good ++ to excellent
    breakfast / hamburgers — unremarkable, yet very overpriced
    bar — haven’t tried yet. hopefully will be part of the explorer club itinerary

  8. My man and I dropped by there really late at night when coming home from a party. He asked if I wanted to go in and I said “Hell yeah!” Turns out he was joking, but my enthusiasm convinced him.

    There were some guys in there playing pool looking at us like we were interrupting their evening, though they warmed up to us eventually. The bartender tried really hard to get me to do a shot of Ouzo. I kept refusing but he poured it for me anyway and said it was on the house. He didn’t have any gin, so I eventually ordered a screwdriver. He said he hadn’t had a day off in 10 years.

    This place, along with the Old Clam House before it was the New Old Clam House, has been a running joke for us for a while. We’ll probably wind up there again when we’re coming back from somewhere and in desperate need of a strong and terrible drink.

  9. I tried to buy donuts there about a decade ago, and found very few donuts in the case but a merry day crowd in the bar at 8 am. The David Lynch movie descriptor is perfect. I haven’t been back, but then Twin Peaks gave me nightmares…

  11. Among other lessons, I learned during my visit to Silver Crest that big yeasty donuts and shots of ouzo go well together. We sat at the bar while the Greek owner lectured us on the techniques by which one can determine when a customer was no longer fit to drive. It turns out that the distance to be driven factors heavily into his diagnosis, but in the blurry haze of 2am donuts, with a tall man in a leather bustier barking at patrons in the parking lot, even such lopsided logic seemed sensible to us.

    Silver Crest is David Lynch to a tee. You must go see it.

  14. That place is awesome, untill you get the bill. Then the awesome-ness goes away. $30 for breakfast for 2? Not cool. And they charge for coffee refills, and serve the coffee in a 6oz cup….

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