Football season can be a confusing time in L.A. With no hometown team to root for, football fiends are split into two camps: There are the hordes of roving 49ers, Raiders, and Chargers fans trying to cling to some form of pan-California identity; and there are the L.A. only, college-rules-everything-around-me crowd who refuses to rock anything but the powder-blue of UCLA or the crimson of USC.
But what’s even more confusing than shifting team allegiances is finding a place with good food, good beer, and ample TVs to watch the game. It seems like you can always find two of the three necessities, and then you see a line cook dumping a bag of pre-breaded, frozen chicken nuggets into the fryer while the kitchen door is swinging open. Don’t settle—go to one of these three places on Sunday instead.
Photo courtesy Facebook/Plan Check
Plan Check, locations in Sawtelle, Fairfax, and Downtown, plancheck.com
Hot Wings: Chef Ernesto Uchimura takes fresh local chicken wings, fries them in beef fat, dunks them in a house-made buffalo sauce, then tops them with micro celery. Because garnishes don’t take a day off, not even during football season. They’ll be available for $1.50 per double-cut wing—hence the name—on game day.
Beer: Selections range at each of the three locations, Sawtelle has the smallest list with eight draft beers and Fairfax the largest with 16. But during football games, select drafts will be on special for $6 a pop, making them all equal.
TVs: Sawtelle and Downtown will be showing locally televised games, but you’ll have to head down to Fairfax for NFL Sunday Ticket and, the football gods’ gift to fankind, Redzone.
The Greyhound, 5570 N. Figueroa St., Highland Park, 323-900-0300 or the-greyhound.com
Hot Wings: This place is for the variety fiends: The Greyhound has 16 different kinds of wings. Heat ranges from Mild to ‘Judgment Day’ and there’s Tandoori, Hunan BBQ, Chile con Limon, and tons more in between. They’re also sold by the pound for anyone who feels short-shrifted by getting disparately sized wings.
Beer: There are a total of 34 beers on the menu, most of which are sold by the bottle. However, they also have a rotating selection of nitrogen-infused beers on tap—because everyone deserves to watch football with a scientifically advanced beer in hand.
TVs: There are only a handful of TVs at The Greyhound, which means you can watch a primetime game without being overwhelmed
Biergarten, 206 N Western Ave., Koreatown, 323-466-4860 or biergartenla.com
Hot Wings: The Korean-leaning-but-also-kind-of-German gastropub in Koreatown serves up a couple different varieties of wings. For the tame, your standard fried buffalo wings; and for those looking for some more adventure in their life, the “Asian wings” jacked up with gochujang. The Asian wings are part of Biergarten’s weekday happy hour menu, which goes from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.—perfect for a 5:30 kickoff time on a Thursday evening.
Beer: One of the best lists of craft beers on tap in L.A. Biergarten keeps a consistent rotation of about 25 beers from all around the world. Pitchers are available, which is always a plus for football season.
TVs: Wall-to-wall. That’s right, screens all over the place. Though it’s more known for watching big events like MMA matches or the travesty that was the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, Biergarten still attracts a crowd every Sunday.
