Hal Frederick, trailblazing Venice restaurateur and owner of Hal’s Bar and Grill, dies at 91

I walked into Hal’s Bar and Grill for the first time during the summer of 1989, a year after its opening, having just moved to Los Angeles from New York City. The unmistakable sound of Miles Davis played softly throughout the high-ceilinged space. I was told about the restaurant by my dad, Howard Johnson, who was friends with fellow restaurateur and proprietor Hal Frederick. Instantly, I knew it would be my spot.

For 30 years, Hal’s Bar and Grill was ground zero for a burgeoning Venice scene on the street that in 1990 was renamed from West Washington to Abbot Kinney Boulevard. With a long bar, booths with slate tabletops, metal sculptures and large pieces from local artists such as Ted Moses, Peter Alexander and Laddie John Dill, the restaurant was effortlessly cool. Its vibe captured the relaxed sway of its clientele: sophisticated and bohemian artists and writers, locals and longtime Venice residents who, years later, would shudder when the proudly counterculture boulevard was named “The Coolest Block in America” by GQ magazine.

Hal Frederick, proprietor and nightly host of Hal’s Bar and Grill, died April 2 at his home in Venice, surrounded by friends and flowers. He was 91.

Tall, handsome and elegant, Frederick, a former actor, maintained a nightly presence at Hal’s. He moved from table to table, never overstaying, and everyone sought his greeting. There is a fine art to being a restaurateur, and Frederick fully embraced the role.

He made everyone feel seen. Perhaps his greatest gift, and what hospitality meant to him, was acknowledging as many people as he could in a single evening.

Longtime Westside resident and baseball agent Adam Katz recalls: “Hal always was a warm, inviting presence. He struck that nearly impossible balance of bar and restaurant with a cool, high-caliber, diverse crowd. I’ll miss him.”

A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Frederick earned a few on-screen credits before embarking on his calling as a restaurateur. Prior to opening his eponymous bar and grill, he was co-owner of Robert’s on Venice’s Ocean Front Walk in 1977, giving the neighborhood a rare upscale option.

A 1989 Times article described Robert’s as “a Venice restaurant-disco that was a West Coast terminus for Bianca Jagger and Truman Capote.”

Following Robert’s, Frederick worked at Venice’s West Beach Cafe as maitre d’. There, he was introduced to future business partners Don and Linda Novack. The couple had recently become the owners of the Merchant of Venice, a failing cafe concept.

In need of someone who knew the restaurant business, the Novacks teamed up with Frederick and went about transforming the West Washington cafe into Hal’s Bar and Grill.

The trio chose Venice because of its affordability, even though the neighborhood was home to street gangs and plagued by a high crime rate at the time. It’s a challenging but not unfamiliar set of conditions for aspiring restaurateurs in search of architecturally inspiring spaces with low overhead.

And it worked.

Decades-long Venice resident and Frederick’s longtime friend, actor Lori Petty described the restaurant’s atmosphere, saying, “It was gay and straight. It was Black, brown and white. It was family, and Hal was the daddy. Staff and friends would often stay until the sun came up, laughing, dancing and playing cards. No TV. No computers. No smartphones. Just us free young’uns, with Chaka Khan on drums. He died at home full of kisses. I am so proud of him. I told him every day.”

During a 2012 interview, I asked Frederick about the best part of running a restaurant.

“I was an actor, and I love theater,” he said, “There is a certain point in the restaurant when we’re just about to open the doors, the lights are down, and it’s curtain up. It’s like a performance. In fact, it is a performance.”

It was a performance that Frederick nearly perfected at Hal’s Bar and Grill.

My dad and I made Hal’s our Sunday brunch place. On those lazy afternoons over homemade biscuits and steak and eggs, when the restaurant was a little slower, Hal would shimmy into a booth with us. The three of us would trade stories about the ever-revolving restaurant scene. Both men entered the business on separate coasts in the ’70s and witnessed full-blown foodie culture emerge. Their bond was solidified as pioneering African American entrepreneurs in hospitality.

Hal’s closed at its original location in 2015. Two subsequent locations opened, but neither lasted very long. The magic that makes for a successful restaurant in one location can prove an elusive recipe. In 2018, both closed, and Hal’s was gone for good.

“When I first came to L.A. as an aspiring filmmaker, one of the first ‘nice’ restaurants my friends took me to was Hal’s,” said director, producer and former BET President Reggie Hudlin. “I remember staring at that brilliant portrait of Hal hanging over the table. That restaurant symbolized the possibility of Black success in this town, and I was all about it.”

In 2019, Frederick came to dine with me at Post & Beam, the California-soul restaurant I opened in the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw shopping plaza in 2012, which closed earlier this year. He always made it a point to visit me at whatever restaurant I was involved with. I didn’t discuss what became of the places that had recently shuttered; I knew that pain. His legacy was intact. At Hal’s Bar and Grill, he successfully blended art, design, music, food and people in one of the most art-forward communities in the world. We shared a few memories and some laughs, but mostly we sat quietly while Miles played.

Brad Johnson is a 40-year veteran in the hospitality industry, and producer and host of the podcast “Corner Table Talk.”