Check the snobbery at the front door

SEVENTEEN years ago, a couple of British expats were sitting around reading the Recycler. It advertised a bar for sale on Cahuenga Boulevard -- then a seedy stretch of Hollywood known more for drama than klieg lights. The bar was Dave’s Cave, and, legend has it, it was owned by a Boston gangster with a less-than-stellar clientele.

The transplants, Ashley Joyce and Jeremy Thomas, decided to take a chance on the neighborhood, and with partners Marc Smith and Matthew Webb, the Burgundy Room was born. The rest is nightlife history. Three years later, Thomas and Joyce opened the Room, a famed back-alley bar that functioned more like a speak-easy than today’s paparazzo-infested celebrity dens.

“People forget just how sketchy the neighborhood was,” says Joyce, who has seen the Cahuenga area blossom into the hottest club stretch in Hollywood. “We had knives pulled on us, a guy with a hand grenade threaten us. That’s why we opened the alley door as our entrance. So no one would know we were there.”

Nearly two decades later, the word’s out. The partners have gone on to create multiple successful bars, and Joyce has pulled off the unthinkable: He brought Hollywood to the Westside, minus the drama. The best example of this is Barcopa, a Santa Monica bar he owns with partner John Lasker. The venue has lines out the door every weekend and a clientele that doesn’t want to go anywhere else -- except maybe his other bars, the Room in Santa Monica (which like the original Room uses an alley entrance) or Coda in Sherman Oaks, a low-key lounge on Van Nuys Boulevard.

It’s Barcopa, however, that summarizes what they do best. They manage to turn small, discreet spaces into welcoming environments that keep guests satisfied.

“They keep it simple,” says Jerico Cabaysa, a 29-year-old advertising executive who’s a regular at Barcopa. “The drinks are never too expensive, the music is always good and I never leave without having met someone worth talking to.”

He says the best part is their loyalty.

“They give love to people who become regulars,” he says.

Joyce says Barcopa was inspired by a trip he took to Havana and his love for Frank Sinatra, who used to perform at a showroom in the Sands Hotel in Vegas called the Copa Room.

Like their other bars, Barcopa has no sign out front and is dark, really dark, with a raw wall of exposed brick and a long bar that takes up a chunk of the room. Formerly the Pink Elephant -- one of the Westside’s first gay bars -- Barcopa fills up nightly with an eclectic mix of Westsiders who are looking for a scene but not trying to be seen.

“It’s really reflective of the culture here,” says Wendy Walz, a Venice local who’s made the rounds at all of Joyce’s bars. She says she’s particularly drawn to the music. “The DJs aren’t trying to imitate what anyone else is doing. They stay outside of the box and do their own thing.”

On a recent Saturday, Walz’s point was evident. DJ Chris Boogie had people dancing throughout the room to such artists as Frankie Beverly & Maze, A Tribe Called Quest, Los Amigos Invisibles and Sergio Mendes, with a bit of Barry White and Chaka Khan tossed into the mix.

“It’s all about soul,” Joyce says. “The great thing about small spaces like Barcopa is you can really control the energy. There’s a point every night when it starts going off, you feel the heat, the electricity, and that’s when you get goose bumps.”

Now that Joyce has conquered Hollywood, Santa Monica and the Valley, he says he’s moving into downtown with the Association, an upcoming bar at 6th and Main. In a sense, he says he’s starting over again.

“It feels like it did when we first moved into Hollywood. The area’s sketchy; people say we’re crazy. But I wouldn’t miss being a part of it for anything.”

weekend@latimes.com

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Barcopa

Where: 2810 Main St., Santa Monica

When: 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. Tuesday through Sunday

Info: (310) 452-2445; www.barcopa.net