By: Natasha Garyali

The streets of Santa Monica were filled with merry cheers as the first Santa Monica pub crawl pulled in thousands of people dressed in holiday attire which included Santas’, Snowmans’, elves and some naughty reindeer’s. Designed as a fundraiser for the Westside Food Bank, the event brought together the whole community and gave them a taste of the best local bars in the neighborhood.

Approximately 1800 people participated in the event donating more than 3,750 pounds of food for the Westside Food Bank. While a large number of participants were locals, many crawlers drove from as far as Irvine to attend the pub crawl. What made the pub crawl a success were not only the fabulous deals on food and drinks but the fact that the bars on the crawl (for instance group 1) were just stone throw away from each other. For group 2 and 3 which involved a little longer walk, the pub crawl partnered with the Big Blue Bus for transportation, assuring that it was all drinking and no driving for the crawlers.

While on the drinking and eating binge with my group1 crawlers’ I wondered why no one had thought of this before. Well better late than never!

Kim Koury outside West 4th and Jane, one of the eight bars on the Group 1 Santa Monica Pub Crawl route

One of the most amusing things that I found about the Santa Monica pub crawl was how it was formed. Kim Koury and her friend Rebecca Turk while browsing through Google for pub crawls in Los Angeles came to realize that Santa Monica doesn’t have any pub crawls. They understood the potential for such an event in Santa Monica with its walk-able bars which eliminate the need for driving. With the support of Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce and other big sponsors’ the pub crawl quickly roped in 17 bars which included Rusty’s, Big Dean’s, Ye Olde King’s Head, Britannia, The Yard & Joe’s Pizza, Wokcano, O’Brien’s among others. The whole things was in fact thought, sorted and implemented in just 6 weeks.

We caught up with Kim Koury outside West 4th and Jane. Dangling a whistle around her neck, Koury was guiding her group 1 crawlers’ to Harvelle’s (adjacent to West 4th and Jane). Excited with the crowd turnout, an elated Koury told Voice of Santa Monica that she saw people high-fiving each other in the streets and everybody seemed happy everywhere she went. She mentioned that one of the crawlers she spoke with said that he didn’t realize there were so many bars within walking distance of each other in Santa Monica. Another crawler Mark Lundberg excited at the prospective of drinking at eight bars in one night said, “Well I will surely have to crawl home at the end.”

If the crawlers were happy with the event, the event sales brought a bigger smile on the bar owners’ faces. Harvelle’s owner, David Ormesher said, “It was by far the best night of bar sales in the history of Harvelle’s.” Echoing similar sentiments owner of W. 4th and Jane, Keith O’ Brein said, “I feel like I’m back in New Orleans or New York”. Owner of Joe’s Pizza, Joe was also ecstatic to have sold close to 800 slices of pizza during the crawl.

While the Santa Monica pub crawl offered a great evening to all its participants, it had its share of hiccups. Underestimating the potential of the event to draw a massive crowd of people, some of the bars as well as the crawlers felt jostled. Vani Srinivasan, a new Westside resident said, “The space was very limited in some of the bars and it got so crowded that I decided to skip them altogether. Hopefully next time bars which have the capacity to handle a bigger crowd will be roped in.” Agreeing to the space concerns, Koury stated that it was one of the major challenges of this year’s pub crawl. “It was challenging to make bigger bars understand how big the event will be,” Koury said. She was hopeful that seeing the crowd that the first Santa Monica pub crawl pulled in, big bars will be happy to participate next time.

If this year was any indication we are confident that the 2nd Santa Monica pub crawl will only be bigger, better and boozier.