This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.
This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click
here.
Our June member drive is live: protect this resource!
Right now, we need your help during our short June member drive to keep the local news you read here every day going. This has been a challenging year, but with your help, we can get one step closer to closing our budget gap. Today, put a dollar value on the trustworthy reporting you rely on all year long. We can't hold those in power accountable and uplift voices from the community without your partnership.
It's no secret that Q's Billiard Club usually has more douchebags than the feminine products aisle of CVS, but I was in a particularly masochistic mood and felt I needed to hit up Q's at least once in the March Madness Sports Bar tour.
Douches are good for something, as beyond being there for you when you have that no-so-fresh feeling, they make really great fairweather fans and can be found cheering enthusiastically during tournaments and playoffs. While this is not admirable nor desirable, it makes for a good atmosphere when you want to celebrate your local sports team because there's lots of high-fiving and chest bumping and beer drinking going on.
I hadn't been to Q's for a few years, and this was my first adventure into douche-land as a woman in her 30s. I had been warned against this several times, but I am pretty sure that the early 30s are too young to officially be called a cougar so I wanted to try it out for myself.
First, about Q's itself. There was a serious shortage of waitstaff given the fact that it was a tournament day and both USC and UCLA were playing. Several times I waited over 30 minutes just to get another drink, which is pretty poor. At one point we were looking at a menu getting ready to order, and a waitress for a different section snatched it away and gave it to the people in her serving area without saying a word. Um, okay thanks, biatch. Why don't you put some goddamn pants on while you're at it.
Their food is not half-bad for bar food. I had a buffalo chicken salad which was crispy and spicy and buffaloy and pretty much perfect. Mushroom quesadilla was also rather tasty (though not so great if brought to you cold), and the nachos are a staple and loaded to the brim with bar-food goodness. But this is not why one goes to Q's.
Q's has certainly improved their TV quality and placement over the last few years, so for this I can't complain. They also cover the billiard tables to provide more seating for games (I remember spilling guacamole all over a covered pool table during the 2001 NBA Finals, oh, the memories) which creates more seating and spreads the crowd out a bit. No complaints there. Except that they no longer have pear cider on tap. Since when?
One person who gets major props is the staffmember who noticed I had my foot in a walking boot after an unfortunate Crossfit injury, so he made sure I always had a seat. "You're the girl with the broken foot, right? Here's a chair." How kind. Hindsight tells me that I probably should have asked for his number as he was the only considerate person I encountered all night.
Let's move on to douchebag analysis. I met several men last night, and each one confirmed to me in his own way that Q's is a sorry place to celebrate your singleness. First we talked to two guys who apparently are on a few shows on the WB and enjoy chewing tobacco and talking about the writers' strike (it was actually a good barometer to have around, as anyone who recognized him then had to admit to watching WB shows and could immediately be mocked). There was the guy who was super nice to me until he found out my profession, at which point he started muttering and walked off. Then there was the struggling actor who used the phrase "I'm doing a lot of print work" about 12 times which I'm going to take to mean he is in J.C. Penny catalogs and not so gainfully employed. Next came the guy who kept insisting that he was "too old for this bar," which I thought could be a good topic of conversation until I realized that he was four years younger than myself and began to develop a high suspicion that I may be called a cougar if I revealed my true age. We also met a man who came to Q's on the first day of the Big Dance and asked why the hockey game wasn't on TV. Huh? And then of course was your typical Q's patron, the one who says "I have a girlfriend, but if you're just looking for a good time..." Define "good time," will you?
To top off my night, I met a very nice, attractive person who laughed at all of my jokes and was actually older than myself so I decided, of course, that we were soulmates off the bat. Good job, good education, and a charismatic personality, which I later learned must have developed while he was being raised by a family of dogs and sleeping at the foot of someone's bed. I was with my sister while talking to this person, and I excused myself to hobble over to the restroom. I come back to find the guy licking my sister. Not in a sexy way, but in a dog lapping way, with slobber and floppy tongue flying all over the place. I half expected him to start sniffing her ass and then hump her leg, but I intervened and asked why he would place his tongue all over an unwilling recipient. Apparently in dog-speak this sounds sort of like, "woof woof woof woof tongue woof woof?" as next thing I know canine-boy is licking me all over like a dog. I had a harder time getting away, given my current injury, but eventually freed myself from his dirty paws. We saw him again later, and I asked if he enjoyed his life as a dog whore. He said, "yeah, I have sex with at least 4 different women a week!"
Okay, this would go into the category of something my mother told me at a young age: "It's fine to think it, but should you really say that out loud?"
So there you have the unenlightening nothing's-really-changed at Q's report. I feel certain at least one person will say, "this is news???" to which I will simply reply "no." This is not news, but sometimes we have to reassure ourselves that there are certain things we can count on: the sun will always set in the west, the 405 will always be packed, and there will always be douchebags at Q's.
Q's Billiard Club
11835 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90025
310 477 7550
Fentanyl and other drugs fuel record deaths among people experiencing homelessness in L.A. County. From 2019 to 2021, deaths jumped 70% to more than 2,200 in a single year.
