Old school LA bar napkins from classic nightclubs are a nostalgic sip of a bygone era

A stash of decades-old cocktail napkins from Los Angeles restaurants and watering holes is transporting Angelenos back to a bygone era — and proves to be a souvenir worth saving.

The colorful collection, believed to date largely back to the 1950’s and 1960’s, was recently discovered and shared on Reddit.

“Found a small box under a bed in my grandmothers house and to my surprise was full of old napkins from around California and Mexico,” the poster wrote. The tiny paper time capsules feature the bold illustrations, playful typography and elaborate branding once used to make even a cocktail napkin feel glamorous.

The unearthed treasure includes relics from the historic Santa Ynez Inn in Pacific Palisades, Club Seville on the Sunset Strip, the Cocoanut Grove nightclub inside the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard, The Albatross hotel and restaurant in Malibu and other long-gone establishments. Some were so obscure that the poster couldn’t find a trace of them online.  

While most of the establishments represented in the collection are no longer around, the eye-catching designs struck a nerve with Angelenos missing the city’s old personality.

“I could see this being under glass in a museum,” one person commented. “Real LA history. Irreplicable now.”

Another recalled that the Golden Pagoda, once a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, was the kind of place where as a child, they were expected to wear a tie, while another noted that the collection should be preserved at a library in “some kind of city archive.”