Spare Tire

Excellent place and great food! Prices are reasonable and the staff is very friendly. I’m particular we highlight Thomas for his great attitude and assistance! We will come back for sure!

Thomas was awesome — steered me toward the turkey burger which was great and made sure we got our orders in in time for happy hour.

Spare Tire is a great place to grab drinks with your buddies. They have great happy hour food & drink deals! Ask for Thomas — he hooks it up!

My fish and chips were perfect! Love the ambiance. I would definitely recommend this place. Great neighborhood spot. Thomas our server was dope!

Awesome place!!! Great variety of beers and really good food! They also have a sweet 4 – 7 happy hour, so… Head over there now!

Speaking as a local, this place is a HUGE improvement over what was here before. The happy hour, the food, the beer & booze selection, and the service have been consistently good over several visits.
What inspired me to update this review was that I ended up on this webpage today:

Apparently, the camera façade dates back to the 30’s and it’s not legal to remove it. (I wonder why, when they did the redesign, they didn’t consider incorporating it. If they had named it «Camera Bar», I’d bet it would be a huge hit with people in the entertainment industry. All I think about when I hear «Spare Tire» is a reminder that pub food is fattening…)

I REALLY wanted to like Spare Tire. We came in on a Sunday afternoon, armed with enthusiasm and curiosity. Happy hour was going on, but happy this place was not.
The problem lay with the staff (four people revolving). UNFRIENDLY, INATTENTIVE, UNINTERESTED, UNHAPPY and seemingly STRESSED. This is a problem because the staff are inherently responsible for setting the tone and the vibe of the entire place. It was very noticeable and was also reflected in the practically absent service.
We ordered a round of drinks and some fries from the happy hour menu directly from the bartender. It was not busy. There were 12 people total in the bar. After 30 minutes our food had not arrived. I got up from our table and made eye contact with the bartender. I’m sure he knew what I was going to ask (because he was not busy) but he quickly directed his attention to another patron (presumably to avoid having to acknowledge his inattentive service and address our food order) with whom he was having a conversation. I approached the other bartender to inquire about our food. With detachment and ambivalence, he went to the kitchen and came back with our fries that were now cold. It had obviously been sitting ready for quite some time.
Spare Tire, being one of the only drinking establishments in the area, has the opportunity to become the neighborhood hangout. The décor is nice, the space is ample, the beer and cocktail choices are good and the dinner menu looks very tempting. But the disconnected staff gave us no reason to come back. All four members were so detached and sullen, they sucked the energy out of the room.
When one goes out for a drink, they want to spend their time in a welcoming, friendly environment. Spare Tire, at least on this lazy Sunday afternoon, was not that place.
Too bad.

Spare Tire recently replaced Busby’s East on Wilshire. Its a pretty cool venue the way they’ve transformed it. The moment you walk in, there’s a massive fish tank with exotic fish, straight past the tank is the bar. The walls are covered in black and white obscure wallpaper and is accompanied by gold chandelier lighting. On top the wall paper, you’ll find old rock and roll vintage posters from bands like The Ramone’s to The Beatles.
The drinks are pretty good, in fact I think this is a better place for drinks rather than the food. I like the «Sage Against the Machine,» clever name so they get more points in my book. This is a tequila based drink with St. Germain (my fav), cucumber, lime and sage.
Now to the important stuff… the food. Their food has potential but the way its served and plated bothers me. A friend and I ordered the sliders to share which came with fries which was laughable because it wasn’t even a handful of fries, there were maybe 6 with the 2 sliders which just looked awkward and unfinished when it was served to us. Fried pickles were OK. Lots of batter though, almost too much if you ask me.
Why the 2 stars? Because their service is incredibly poor. They took away our food and napkins when we weren’t done. Rushed us out the door by giving us our drinks and then the tab. It was almost like our server was off and wanted to leave by wrapping up his tables as fast as possible. Lame.
Would I go back? Probably not. This city has so many better places to offer for drinks.

The staff is attentive and kind, great beer selection and something that everyone will like– even grandma was thrilled. Get the Brussel sprouts as a side for any sandwich, way better than you think they will be. Will definitely come back!

The service is soooo slow and by the time we got our food it was cold. The food was nasty. .DO NOT GO!!!

This place is pretty good. Had the chicken and waffles, that was dope AF.
Boyfriend had the rotisserie Turkey sandwich with avocado. That was pretty good too.
The saving grace of this place was how mutha effin cool Adam is. He’s a bartender. Everyone give him a little love. Fo sho.
They also have Not Your Fathers Rootbeer and I love that.

A must for brunch.
They were able to accommodate our group of 10 with ease.
I would recommend to come here.
Their drink specials are fantastic as well.
We ordered all of their steak cuts.
It was good.
Bless up.

Visiting from NY I wanted to check the brunch scene in the LA area so a friend took me here. Being New Years Day a number of places were closed. The venue was really cute with art and props. Unfortunately, after ordering our food we waiting for a long time prob an hour. On the positive side the service was amazing by providing free drinks to apologize for the wait. We were very pleased though we waited for a while. Food was great and they are very friendly.

Thanks Adam, for the great food and beer recommendations.
I like spare tire because of the atmosphere and the beer menu. The pizzas are good and the food is good, it’s just a little out of my budget. I think the prosciutto pizza and three cheese pizzas are my favorites. Happy hour is a great deal!

Solid neighborhood bar. They have simple appetizers, fancy bites, a full bar, and happy hour. I particularly like their short rib poutine and hanger steak pizza with chimichurri. They also have televisions which makes it a good place to catch games as well.

Not a bad place to people watch through the open windows overlooking the street. Food is exceptionally good. They have great pizza and oyster which I didn’t manage to take a picture of.

No. Just no…
I really thought Spare Tire was going to be so good! I was looking over the menu and I wanted to try so many items! Everything sounded delicious so we decided to grab some seats. We came here pretty late, but we were excited since they had a happy hour deal going on for some of the appetizers.
/​/​FOOD /​/​
East L.A. street corn: Chipotle aioli, parmesan, ancho chile, lime. This might have been the only decent thing that I tried. The chipotle aioli was delicious and definitely made it taste that much better.
Loaded tots: Tots, melted cheese, bacon. I was expecting a lot of different toppings on it since it’s called «loaded» tots, but it was pretty basic.
Poutine: I was so excited since I absolutely love poutine, but this poutine tasted exactly like canned beef gravy and the cheese was even a little weird. The fries were good, but I wanted poutine and not just fries!
½ rotisserie chicken: Garlic mash, southern greens and pan gravy. When this dish came out my eyes almost fell out! It was huge and looked so juicy! I was so excited to take my first bite, but when I did the chicken was dry, the mashed potatoes were bland and the gravy was a little too bitter. I was sooo disappointed!
Overall, I was extremely disappointed in the food here. I came with 3 other people and we all said that we will never come back here. It’s unfortunate since it’s a really chill spot on Wilshire, but the food was below par.

I went here for happy hour, and I will DEFINITELY be returning. We ordered the beef sliders and the loaded tots, which were $ 7 and $ 6 respectively (during happy hour). They use thick cut bacon, which I love! And, lucky for me there was bacon on both the sliders and the tater tots.
The décor in the place is fabulous, so artsy and unique. They even have a really cool fish tank. And an awesome selection of beers on tap :)

Had dinner and drinks here with my friend and my daughter. The tavern wasn’t even that crowded and the service was slllllllllllow.
The waiter had a great personality, it’s just everything came out at snail pace, and at different times.
The fried pickles were delish! The strawberry mint martinis are wonderful. The chicken and waffle appetizer was just alright (they are very confusing to your taste buds because it have a bunch of «stuff» in the middle). The most disappointing dish of the night was the lobster roll. Cold, stale bread, with chilled lobster on top. It was so yucky. I can’t really say that I would be back here.
Cheers.

Happy hour review:
Somewhat new to the neighborhood. My boyfriend and I were walking somewhere else and the sign out front caught our attention. $ 5 happy hour menu which includes food, wine, and CRAFT BEER!
The highlight of happy hour at Spare Tire is (yes, you guessed it) the beer. First place I’ve been to that offers Ballast Point Sculpin on tap for $ 5. From what I remember, the actual brewery doesn’t sell a pint for that cheap… Their overall beer selection is on point. The happy hour food was ok, great for the price. My boyfriend and I shared the wood-​fired pizza, chicken and waffles, and poutine. Flavors were there and really great sides to the main attraction: beer. Lol.
LOVE the ambiance at Spare Tire. We came on a really perfect 75 degree evening so we sat at a long table right next to the window facing Wilshire. Fun to car/​bus/​people watch and the fresh (ok fine it’s not really fresh… smog? Haha) air felt good.