Opened 1962 in a 1924 apartment building across from the old Ambassador Hotel. The booths carry plaques; the drinks carry the night.
HMS Bounty has held the ground floor of the Gaylord Apartments since 1962, when Gordon Fields opened it across Wilshire from the Ambassador Hotel. The building went up in 1924, named for Henry Gaylord Wilshire himself, and the bar's nautical fittings predate the Bounty name, inherited from the room's run as Dimsdale's Secret Harbor.
Time Out keeps it on the Koreatown essentials list and The Infatuation ranks it among LA's best dive bars. Booth plaques name the celebrities who sat there, William Randolph Hearst to Winston Churchill, and Mad Men borrowed the room when it needed 1960s Wilshire without set dressing.
Who would hate it? Anyone who needs a back bar lit like a jewelry case. The Bounty pours strong, charges little, and changes nothing.
The room runs dark and nautical: rope, ship lamps, red booths, and decor that Scoundrel's Field Guide traces to the space's previous lives as the Fountain Room and Secret Harbor. The booth plaques are the self guided tour. Slide in early on weeknights; Koreatown's late crowd owns it after eleven.
Order well drinks and beer; the pours run generous and the prices run decades behind the neighborhood, the consistent note across The Infatuation's dive bar guide and years of regulars' reviews. The kitchen sends old school American plates, steaks and sandwiches, that match the booths.
Gaylord residents, Koreatown barflies, screenwriters, and history tourists share the booths. Daytime drinks run quiet; weekend nights pack the rail deep.