Mother Lode gay bar, on Santa Monica Boulevard

There's nothing fancy about the rough-and-tumble Mother Lode, an old-school gay bar that's been drawing regular guys and gay neighborhood locals for years - this is just a solid, friendly, and somewhat cruisy hangout that's a good bet when you don't feel like dressing up and dealing with the stand-and-model scene at some of the scene-y bars across Santa Monica Boulevard. It's next to the gay erotic and porn shop, Unicorn Books.