A Night Out in Calabasas: A Few Drinks and Not Much Else

Nightlife in Calabasas. If you like peace and quiet, you picked a great spot to come to. If you are a night owl, you have to look elsewhere for your evening dose of humanity and action.

The obvious choice that we can all take our curious out-of-town friends who might want to see ghosts while tipping back a hellacious-sized drink and eating a delicious deep-fried barbecue brisket log (served with perfect French fries and coleslaw of course) to is the Sagebrush Cantina.

The Cantina is where the entire west valley converges in ersatz impromptu class reunions, weekend biker runs, packs of divorcees-on-the prowl and sports junkies congregate in the inner bar surrounded by a halo of flat screens cheering on their favorite teams, while texting their bookies and drinking the happy hour draft. 

It is our demented Cheers in many ways, where everybody knows your name, or no one depending on the night you hit it. There is a familiarity to it that makes it the default pub for the 91302, love it or hate it.

Calabasas' La Paz Restaurant is abuzz on Friday nights, as the world-weary meet up for the happy hour there and the melted cheese that the owner, Oscar, dishes up keeps people stuck to their chairs, inhaling chips, salsa, jalapeno spicy pickled carrots and navigating platters that swim in beans and rice.

There really should be a salsa or samba dance off going on simultaneously so we can all burn off these south-of-the-border carbohydrates.

Another nightlife spot is the exterior patio for Mi Piace, where many foreign born Calabasas residents eat late night meals under the heat lamps, near Rick Caruso creek, our man-made meandering Commons body of water rocked and stocked with fish, turtles and ducks.

It's a perfect diversion for kids while the adults sip their macchiatos and nurse their scotches, putting the day behind them, while foreign-born residents who used to smoke freely in their native lands complain about the draconian Calabasas ban on smoking in public.

There once was a club, Pelican's Retreat at 24454 Calabasas Rd. that was in the old historic Spanish tiled spread up near Sperling Nursery. I am not up on the entire history of this place, but an old, retired Hells' Angel biker who was based in nearby Woodland Hills told me once back in the 1970s he was arrested there (it wasn't called the Pelican's Retreat then). So it has a salty history. The place is vacant and ripe for a restaurant or live music venue or club to open.

Where's the nightlife in the 91302 for you? Undoubtedly Calabasas is a sleepy 'burb that has loads of dough and not to many places at night to go, so tell me what I am missing out on, and what you would put in the vacant Pelican's Retreat if you had some start up money to burn.