Last Call with Richard Crouse

by Richard Crouse

Last Call is a podcast on the stories behind the places where everybody knows your name. It's a chance to soak up the ambiance of the world's greatest watering holes without leaving your home. I’m Richard Crouse. I tended bar for seventeen years everywhere from hot spots to dive bars and I thought I had seen it all. In my life behind bars I witnessed everything from first dates and marriage proposals to knife fights and a wom ...   ...  Read more

Podcast episodes

  • Season 2

  • Last Call with Richard Crouse: "You didn't go there for the bathrooms. You went there for the music."

    Explicit

    Last Call with Richard Crouse: "You didn't go there for the bathrooms. You went there for the music."

    Explicit

    Punk rock came roaring to life in a cramped, dingy bar on New York City’s Lower East Side called CBGB at 315 Bowery. More known for its filthy bathrooms than its drinks or food—legendary rock photographer Bob Gruen said with a laugh, “It was not a place you’d eat at.”—it is significant for its oversized influence on rock ‘n’ roll history. It’s the punk rock Cavern Club, a launching pad for new genres of music that still reverberate today. Punk scene likely would have happened without CBGB, but the grungy little club gave it a homebase.  In this podcast I’ll talk about the unruly story of an accidental cultural incubator born out of a unique moment in history where outsiders, like The Ramones, The Dead Boys, Talking Heads and Blonde, were brought together, celebrated and encouraged to be themselves.      Joining me to tell the story of CBGB are photographer Boib gruen, filmmaker, co-founder of “Punk” magazine and CBGBite Mary Harron, The ‘B’ Girls singer Lucasta Ross and The Punk Rock Museum co-founder Lisa Brownlee. Topping it off is an interview from the vault I did with CBGB’s owner Hilly Kristal in 1992

  • Season 1

  • Are You Home?

    Are You Home?

    Feeling lonely? "Are You Home" is a virtual party and everyone is invited. Tune in, drop by, hear a few stories and spend some time with us.

  • Last Call with Richard Crouse: The last great dive bar on Hollywood Boulevard

    Explicit

    Last Call with Richard Crouse: The last great dive bar on Hollywood Boulevard

    Explicit

    Situated next to the grand Pantages Theater, once the home of the Academy Awards and still one of the leading venues for live theater in Los Angeles, the Frolic Room’s store front is humble… but you can’t miss the extravagant neon sign. Like all great bars it is an egalitarian place, a truly democratic space where, for the price of a drink, you are welcomed, whether you’re Charles Bukowski, Frank Sinatra or a just thirsty person off the street. It’s a classic, welcoming place, the way it has always been. “If you changed the Frolic Room, I think it would ruin the business,” owner Robert Nunley says. “It works this way.”

  • Last Call with Richard Crouse: "The Greatest Place in the History of the World."

    Last Call with Richard Crouse: "The Greatest Place in the History of the World."

    Imagine a bar with an indoor lagoon. Now imagine that it rains, indoors every half hour. It’s not just a flight of fancy, it’s the Tonga Room, a classic restaurant and tiki bar in the Fairmont San Francisco hotel. Named after the South Pacific nation of Tonga, it is an eye-popping example of high-style Tiki that has been igniting the imaginations of customers for more than seventy five years. Designed by Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s leading set director, it is the tropical paradise Anthony Bourdain called, “the greatest place in the history of the world." Learn about the invention of Tiki, the California Gold Rush and the legendary Tonga Room!

  • Last Call with Richard Crouse: The Clubhouse to the Stars

    Last Call with Richard Crouse: The Clubhouse to the Stars

    On this episode of “Last Call with Richard Crouse” we visit Sardi's, located at 234 West 44th Street, between Broadway and Eighth Avenue, in the Theatre District of Manhattan, New York City. It is Broadway’s most famous restaurant, and you may recognize it as the place where Kramer falsely accepts a Tony Award on "Seinfeld," or where Finn and Rachel met Patti LuPone in an episode of "Glee" or perhaps you know it as the place where Don Draper and Bobbie Barrett celebrated the sale of a television pilot on "Mad Men." The walls of celebrity caricatures are iconic and unmistakable. Listen to the whole story of the "Clubhouse to the Stars" where the Tony Awards were born!