Hinano Beer remains Tahiti’s most popular beer export, the woman sitting by the ocean on each bottle’s label echoed by merchandise found at Hinano Café. Venice in the 1960s was a different place than today, filled with bars in the same vein as Hinano Café. As the city matured and times changed, most of those businesses changed names or failed, leaving Hinano Café as one of the last standing, unchanged stalwarts of that time period. And with that history came some of the celebrity culture of that era, most famously in the form of Jim Morrison who not only frequented the bar but carved his initials into its wood-lined interior.
Owner Larson left his imprint on Café Hinano, using those early years to build out the bar’s interior decorations and features. The stained glass windows were designed by Larson and his commission of artist Bud Harris resulted in the iconic sign over the front door. When the original sign took on a bit too much wear and tear, Harris was commissioned once again to create an enhanced replica with a bit more durability, ensuring the spiritual continuation of the original sign and those original times.
Current owner Mark Van Gessel purchased Hinano Café with partners Andy Schelich and Lee Glazer when Larson retired in the 1990s. Glazer in particular proved key to the sale, having worked as a bartender at the Venice dive bar since 1963. Though Glazer passed away in 2010, Van Gessel and Schelich have long pledged to keep the Hinano Café as it always has been, down to the sawdust on the floors and the mural along the bar’s exterior. Changes have been made over the years of course, including taking over the next-door laundromat to create what is now the bar’s pool room, but the space feels authentic to its 1962 roots.
Given the Venice Beach location, it comes as no shock that the outdoor seating area at Hinano Café is an inviting, layered experience, stretching from a strip of tables adjacent to the building to a fenced area adjacent to the road with additional tables, some of them shaded. The mural along the top of the building fits its ocean-friendly location down to the blue paint and tiki-style lettering. The restored black sign above the door looks subtle in comparison but provides a nice one-two punch with the bold lettering on the structure itself.