{"id":39428,"date":"2025-11-05T17:14:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T17:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/39428\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T17:14:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T17:14:11","slug":"the-los-angeles-breakfast-club-is-the-most-interesting-club-youve-never-heard-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/39428\/","title":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Breakfast Club is the most interesting club you\u2019ve never heard of"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI don\u2019t know how to process what I just watched\u2026\u201d read a text I received from a friend back in Ireland\u00a0after I sent him a 30-second video clip of the proceedings at my first-ever meeting of the Los Angeles Breakfast Club<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Being new to L.A., I\u2019ve been trying to immerse myself in the culture here\u2014from catching comedy shows at Largo<\/a> to trying the newest vegan Mexican food<\/a> in the Valley\u2014but somehow none of the guidebooks ever pointed me toward this bizarre and wonderful gem of L.A. history: a century-old social club that meets over breakfast once a week at the base of Los Feliz Boulevard to sing silly songs and listen to guest speakers. When I stumbled upon this group on social media, it seemed right up my alley, the only problem was\u2026 I\u2019m not a morning person. Not even slightly. So it seemed like I\u2019d never attend this 7am social gathering\u2014but the promise of an art history lesson from RoboCop himself finally made me bite.<\/p>\n

Back in 1925, the Los Angeles Breakfast Club was originally an excuse for the horse-riding businessmen of Griffith Park to meet up and grab breakfast. But the group soon became an official club with food, music, stories and lectures every week. It wasn\u2019t long before they embraced quirky traditions and became an intentional parody of mysterious groups like the Masons. The gathering\u2019s history is ever-present from moment to moment, and this old-world charm echoes into today, making it a timeless experience. Though there\u2019s still a membership option available today ($285 yearly or $28.50 monthly), if a specific guest strikes your fancy, tickets can be purchased for individual events for just $35, with no obligation to join.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The club\u2019s meetings take place every Wednesday morning, while most Angelenos are either in the gym or bracing themselves for a grueling 405 commute. It might have been that I was sleep-deprived, but walking through those doors of the Friendship Auditorium, where the morning meetings have been held since 1965, to smiling faces and quirky characters decked out in Hawaiian shirts and fedoras, I felt like I was stepping into an alternate universe\u2014or at the very least, the set of a PG David Lynch movie. Either way, I felt miles away from the L.A. I\u2019d come to know.<\/p>\n

I was expecting a breakfast buffet, some sleepy chitchat and a keynote speech from a beloved \u201980s actor\u2014standard networking-conference-style fare, right? Nope! Nothing could have prepared me for what unfolded between 7 and 9am that morning. I felt like a deer in the headlights as their programming came at me in startling bursts that woke me up faster than the drip coffee and veggie bacon. One minute, you\u2019re chatting\u00a0with veteran attendees who welcome newcomers warmly with pleasant self-awareness (the line \u201cWe\u2019re all mad here\u201d from Alice in Wonderland\u00a0comes to mind). The next, you\u2019re joining hands with strangers, rocking back and forth and singing along to songs like \u201cYankee Doodle Dandy\u201d or \u201cHam and Eggs,\u201d the club\u2019s\u00a0anthem. It\u2019s pretty catchy!<\/p>\n

There is a strong sense of found family here, with in-jokes, silly traditions and shared weirdness unifying this eclectic buffet of early risers, empty nesters, retirees and tribe seekers. The resident grand piano player accompanied the festivities with a beautiful instrumental rendition of the doo-wop song \u201cSince I Don\u2019t Have You,\u201d which\u2014being a cult movie fan\u2014I recognized as the song that morning\u2019s guest, Dr. Peter Weller, sings in his barely known sci-fi B-movie,\u00a0The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. I always assumed I was the only person on the planet who had seen that film. Suddenly I was in a room of 100 people, most of whom seemed to know and love this obscure title well. When the guest speaker was then introduced via a member singing a bespoke song based on Weller\u2019s bio, I knew this convention of obscurity paid serious attention to detail.<\/p>\n

\"A
\nPhotograph: Conor Dowling <\/p>\n

Despite at times feeling like I was being pranked on some sort of Pee-wee Herman\u2013esque hidden camera show, I couldn\u2019t help but be won over by the sincerity of the members, performers and speakers. There is a whole subculture unfolding here before most of us are even fit for public consumption, complete with its own rules and etiquette that would take more than one visit to fully grasp\u2014and I\u2019m a long way off from understanding the lingo or decoding their famous cryptogram. (Don\u2019t ask\u2014or do?)<\/p>\n

I was also lucky enough to witness a new member induction, which perplexingly features a blindfolded person sitting onstage on a wobbly old sawhorse and placing their hand on a plated fried egg. (Since the event, I\u2019ve asked myself if this actually happened or if it was part of an extended fever dream, but research tells me this initiation pledge has been the same going back decades.) This happened right after an abrupt post-breakfast calisthenics workout led by a member who\u2019s been attending since the 1980s.<\/p>\n

The more seasoned guests assured me that Weller\u2019s talk, \u201cRoboCop to Renaissance,\u201d would be a special treat. The screen icon shared his journey from being a young actor in New York hanging out with Andy Warhol to getting his Ph.D. in Renaissance art in\u00a0his later years. He peppered the talk with pearls of wisdom about lighting and scene composition he\u2019d observed throughout his career from working with famous cinematographers and directors who drew inspiration from Italian painters.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.
\nPhotograph: Conor Dowling <\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t help but wonder what the guest speakers each week thought of this display. Most come to promote a new book or give a talk about their career or a new project, many of which focus\u00a0on some aspect of\u00a0Los Angeles\u00a0history, culture or community. One week could be a talk about Art Deco architecture from a historian; the next it could be a discussion about the Black Film Archive, true crime or L.A. before freeways. Past notable speakers have included \u201cPope of Trash\u201d John Waters, TCM host Ben Mankiewicz and Barret Eugene Hansen\u2014a.k.a. Dr. Demento, \u201cWeird Al\u2019s\u201d mentor.<\/p>\n

Among all the zaniness, there were some poignant moments. I was taken aback by a reading one of the members, storyteller Adam Mellema, did from the intro to Leonard Nimoy\u2019s biography. It was a piece about being a frustrated young actor in the 1950s in a dying Hollywood where work was scarce. The\u00a0passage felt aimed at a room full of dreamers seeking their own L.A. fairy tale and served as a powerful reminder of the creativity and ambition that unifies so many people in this diverse city alongside the existential struggles the entertainment industry is facing.<\/p>\n

To think that every Wednesday morning for the past 100 years, some version of this eclectic group of lovable goofballs\u00a0has gathered in this way and kept the tradition going is truly remarkable. That\u2019s not to say the group hasn\u2019t evolved from\u00a0its male-only origins\u2014back when Walt Disney and Cecil B. DeMille hung out there. Even in the early days, though, when the club was closed to the public, the LABC knew they had something unique to share. Meetings would be broadcast on L.A. public radio so locals could hear the shenanigans unfolding at the quirky morning gatherings.<\/p>\n

Even the most jaded Angelenos could find a sense of community at this quirky L.A. institution.<\/p>\n

My experience at the L.A. Breakfast Club was unlike anything I\u2019ve ever\u00a0seen\u00a0in Los Angeles\u2014or anywhere else in the world, for that matter. And I had to wonder: Does the rest of L.A. know what\u2019s going on behind the doors of the club\u2019s \u201cShrine of Friendship\u201d every week? Since attending, I\u2019ve asked everyone I\u2019ve met in L.A.\u2014transplants and homegrown locals alike\u2014if they\u2019ve experienced the LABC. Few have even heard of this hidden gem, let alone attended.<\/p>\n

Coming from Ireland, it\u2019s often that I have culture shocks in this unique city that compares to no other on the planet. But even the most jaded Angelenos could find a sense of escapism, joy and, dare I say, community at this quirky L.A. institution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And you know, if you want to come with a squirrel puppet on your arm, or wear that funky outfit that doesn\u2019t quite go in typical social settings, then this is the spot for it. Come as you are, or dress on theme with that week\u2019s guest. It\u2019s up to you!<\/p>\n

The L.A. Breakfast Club is marking 100 years on Saturday, November 8, with a Centennial Celebration<\/a> event. Expect an elegant evening of dancing and dining. If you can\u2019t make the event or just want to learn more about the group\u2019s history, you can read about the past century of LABC in the forthcoming book The Los Angeles Breakfast Club: A Century of Hollywood, Hi-Jinx, and Ham & Eggs!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI don\u2019t know how to process what I just watched\u2026\u201d read a text I received from a friend…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[7579,48,52,51,47,50,49,27054,420],"class_list":{"0":"post-39428","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-categories-things-to-do","9":"tag-la","10":"tag-la-headlines","11":"tag-la-news","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","14":"tag-los-angeles-news","15":"tag-news-weird-wonderful","16":"tag-things-to-do"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}