You may recall, back in January, we wrote how the longtime bastion of Santa Monica dive bar culture JP’s was set to open in a new location "in weeks." Well, tragically that didn’t happen, but the eternally unobtainable carrot at the end of the infinitely long stick is now finally within reach and the all new and improved JP’s 2.0 is now officially open.
Owner Alexander Kallberg had hoped for everything to be ready in time for the Super Bowl, but alas, it wasn’t to be.
"Santa Monica is pretty difficult to deal with. It got down to the departments that I didn’t think would be an issue and they were more of an issue as it turned out. Minimal things like the trash and stuff like that," Kallberg said, adding, "And anything with Santa Monica takes at least a month. So it was trash and fire alarms and small stuff, but each one of those is like another month at a time, so yeah, it was pretty infuriating.
"One of the frustrating things about the city is that they don’t really tell you things concurrently, it gets through one department then goes to the next, so when you’d like things to be dealt with all in one month, it ends up being over a month to month to month period," he said.
Credit: Scott Snowden
For years Santa Monica residents have wondered what was happening at 925 Wilshire Blvd suite C ever since a public notice appeared on the door indicating an application for a permit to sell alcoholic beverages, back in February 2022. The name of the establishment on that permit application was "JP’s Sports Bar & Grill."
Originally at 1101 Wilshire Blvd and now less than two blocks west, JP’s is practically a local landmark and it is in fact among the oldest standalone watering holes in Santa Monica. According to Kallberg, it goes all the way back to the 1940s and was originally a little pharmacy called The Airlines, back in the halcyon heyday of Donald Douglas et al. It eventually transformed into a bar and then at some point during the ‘70s two brothers from Jamaica Plain in Boston bought it. A few years after that, Kallberg’s family took it over and he relocated it to a bigger site after it closed in early 2021.
"That’s where JP’s comes from – Jamaica Plain," said Kallberg.
Having visited the bar while work was still in progress, the transformation is quite remarkable. Kallberg very much has an idea of what is both aesthetically pleasing and practical in terms of decor. The walls aren’t cluttered and there’s plenty of empty space, yet neon signs add just enough decoration to make it interesting. At the same time, Kallberg welcomes the idea that over time, the place will become personalized.
Credit: Toddrickallen/JP's/Scott Snowden
"Most stuff gets damaged even if it’s by accident if it’s too low on the walls," he said. "It just gets messed up or pulled down. But, in the old place, there was a space where everyone used to write their names, so I might eventually incorporate something like that, because that was really popular."
This new location is three times the size of the old venue and has double the floor space. The windows feature heavy blackout-style curtains and a large, centrally-placed bar with screens encircling it.
The back end of the venue incorporates a second large area with pool tables and television screens and then there’s a medium-sized kitchen that will offer bar-style food like burgers, wings and so on. There are even tentative plans for a barbecue and smoker outside for the summer season and since the old bar had a connection to Cleveland-based sports teams, Kallberg said that will continue.
"If people want to come in and watch a game, any game, then they can," he says, even rugby. "Our aim here is to create an environment where people can just come and hang out, they can prop the bar up and talk to complete strangers in a relaxed environment, if they want to.
"We want to accommodate everyone, but if a big group calls ahead or gets in early and wants to watch something specific, then it’s very much a first come, first served basis."
