GIGA GRANADA HILLS

"Everybody in Granada Hills basically comes to our bar on St. Patrick's day," says Danny Deprest, who co-manages Oh Grady's in Old Town Granada Hills with his partner Melissa, who owns the bar. Oh Grady's, like most Irish-themed bars, expects to have a full house on March 17th, but they're planning to keep things slightly lower-key this year than last. At the height of Oh Grady's 2009 St. Patrick's Day party, Los Angeles Fire Marshalls paid a visit at about 11:30 p.m. and shut the place down for overcrowding and lack of a proper fire permit. The lack of a permit was the result of a simple misunderstanding, Danny explains. "The entire time the bar was open -- from when it was Valentino's, and then became Oh Grady's -- nobody ever caught that it didn't have a fire permit. We took over almost two years ago, and you have to go to Building and Safety, and Alcholic Beverage Control, and no one caught that there was no fire permit. We thoug...

"We have a DJ here on Saturday nights," says Bonnie, day shift bartender at the Sugar Suite. "What kind of music does he play?" I ask. "Crap!" interjects one of the regulars. "Young people stuff. The difference between night and day here is like... night and day." On this Monday afternoon, the Sugar Suite is cozy, dark, and friendly. Within about a minute or two of my entry, almost everyone in the place -- and there are always people here -- has introduced themselves and shaken my hand. It's an old bar (no one inside knows exactly how old, but the guess is that it dates to sometime in the sixties), but well-loved and well-maintained. The red vinyl booths are slick and glossy, no dive-y duct tape in sight, and there are half a dozen new-looking flat screens hovering above Bonnie's head. "The best time to come here is on a Friday afternoon," says one of the daytime denizens. "No, the best time to come here is on Satu...