Words By
ALEX KHATCHADOURIAN
Photos By
KENNY INGLE
Scott Davenport still remembers getting a call from his stepfather in 2013. A call that abruptly changed his life.
“Bobby called me and said, ‘I have to teach you how to run the bar.’ My exact words to him, no lie, were, ‘I don’t want that little fucking dump,’” recalls Davenport. That “little fucking dump” was The Harbor Room, a now 50-year-old, triangle-shaped bar, nestled on a busy corner in Playa Del Rey, widely known for its exceptionally tiny square footage and heavy-handed pours.
Harbor Room owner Scott Davenport with his daughter Bri and his bartenders
“He goes, ‘Come on over. After you take a look at the books, I think you will change your mind,’” says Davenport with a smile on his face. “He was right. I changed my mind the second I got a look at the books. I said, ‘I’m retired. I’ll take the bar.’”
While the books likely looked pretty damn good to get Davenport to leave his 35-year career as a building engineer and position as chief engineer managing over a million square feet of commercial space in El Segundo, there was something else that helped drive home the decision to say yes to taking over the bar: family. Davenport, although blessed with a sizable and close-knit family, also knows the pain of loss – the passing of his father when he was 12, the untimely and separate passing of both his six-month old son and beloved wife, and the unfortunate passing of his brother. He played both mom and dad to his daughter Bri, while working full-time and going to engineering school at night. His family was there to help him through it all, or “stress me out more,” as Davenport likes to joke.
So when his stepfather Robert “Bobby” Blye was diagnosed with cancer, and both Bob and JoAnn, Davenport’s mother, looked to pass the reins of The Harbor Room to him, Davenport took the opportunity to be there for his family.
From engineer to bar owner, Davenport spent the next few years soaking up as much as he could from Bob — everything from his penny-pinching ways, to anticipating the unexpected situations that arise when you manage and run a bar that’s housed in a 102-year-old building. “When he eventually handed me the key, he said, ‘You know what? Your mother is going to be a handful. And don’t change a damn thing because the way I do it, it works. Good luck,’” Davenport recalls, with a chuckle.
Scott Davenport
The Local Lore of The Davenports and Blyes
Before there was Playa Provisions, there was La Marina Inn. A long-standing local watering hole, just steps from Toe’s Beach, La Marina Inn played host to many swinging nights in the ’70s with its well-known piano bar and dimly lit dining room. During that time, JoAnn Davenport [now Blye] worked there as a waitress. One evening, after a lengthy shift, she got home and made an announcement, “Well, I bought The Harbor Room.” Scott immediately started cracking up, as he thought back to all the times he and his buddies would sneak into The Harbor Room as little kids and shoot rocks at the backs of the crotchety old dudes bellied up to the bar. But Bob had a much different reaction. “They fought for about two months,” says Davenport. “I think the exact words he had for her when he found out were, ‘Who is going to run that little place? You or me?’”
Longtime local and Harbor Room patron, Judy, enjoying her signature Baileys and chocolate milk on ice.
JoAnn had raised three boys on her own and was tired of waiting tables. She worked tirelessly to save up as much money as she could. She took what she saved and a small loan from her mother, and paid for The Harbor Room in all cash. Two owners preceded JoAnn at The Harbor Room — both women, both of whom surprisingly passed away in the actual bar; one in the doorway and one behind the bar. It was only a matter of time before the locals started placing bets on JoAnn’s destiny after she bought the place.
“When she found out that the whole town was betting against her, she knew she had to prove them wrong,” says Davenport.
It was a slow start. Money was barely trickling in and the bar’s small confines had become overrun by bikers, their girlfriends, and their unending appetite for doing coke and finessing free drinks.
Although Bob hadn’t fully bought into JoAnn’s idea of owning and running a bar, he had recently lost his job and decided that he was going to go down to the bar and see what was going on. “Bob came down here, nobody knew who he was, and he stood here watching the bartenders give away booze to the rowdy bikers,” says Davenport. “He fired everyone that night. He went out and got two old bartenders from La Marina Inn: Mexican Dave and Old Steve. Dave was with my parents for 28 years and Steve was with them for 48 years. There’s also Robert Lepore, who bartended for 18 years, and good ol’ Loretta ‘Lola’ who has been at The Harbor Room for 28 years and is like an older sister to me. She’ll always have a job here.” It wasn’t long before The Harbor Room started making money. “The second they cleaned it up and brought in the local bartenders, they started getting the local clientele in,” says Davenport.
“Bobby would work behind the bar on the really slow nights, and he is the one that really helped turn it around. We would not have anything we have, if it wasn’t for Bobby.”
While JoAnn’s decision to purchase The Harbor Room may have seemed like a lousy investment at the time, the quaint little bar has arguably only sustained the last fifty years because she was the one who bought it. JoAnn, a local to Playa Del Rey, knew the people, the community, and the area better than anyone. She raised three boys by the “duck pond,” more widely known now as the Del Rey Lagoon, when Mo’s was a Bank of America, there were horse stables a few feet from Culver Boulevard, and her extended family owned the entire building that Tanner’s Coffee resides in. She earned the nickname Miss Kitty for being one sassy and opinionated motherfucker, and at 96, still watches the footage from the cameras inside the bar, always willing to provide her opinion: “Why is that damn dog in there?”
Like JoAnn, Scott has also played the main character of many memories that make up South Bay lore, like playfully naming “The Jungle” with his friend Paul Moody back in the ’60s, only for it to stick, and now be found on Google Maps as an actual destination. Or being an early shortboarder in California, after his brother and friend stripped a longboard down to 6 feet with a single fin, which he would paddle across the duck pond and surf in Ballona Creek. Or proudly being one of the original Hermosa Pier Rats. “You could not surf the breakwater to 22nd Street in Hermosa without talking to my buddies and I first,” says Davenport. Or casually surfing breakwater at 25 plus, as a kid, with Mike Purpus.
It’s no wonder that when Bob was diagnosed with cancer, he and JoAnn looked to Scott to continue The Harbor Room legacy, one built on the local charisma and the family-first spirit they fostered over decades with their loyal clientele.
A New (but still kind of the same) Era
An older woman named Judy sits at the first stool on the west end of the bar. She’s sporting a brand new dye job with color likeness to that of Lucille Ball. She casually takes sips from her signature order of chocolate milk and Baileys on ice, while gently giggling at the woman dancing next to her. That’s Tanya. She loves coming to The Harbor Room to drink white wine and take over the jukebox.
“The old guys tap their toes because they’re slightly annoyed,” says Tanya, with a smirk. “But they don’t really mind, or else they’ll leave.”
She quickly turns around to belt out the lyrics to Toni Basil’s 1982 hit “Mickey,” almost directly in the ear of the older man sitting next to her. He seems unfazed, scrolling on his phone, and intermittently looking up at the TV. The bartender, Rob, stands at nothing less than 6’7, which is no small feat in this itty bitty bar with only seven barstools. He regularly joins Tanya in singing the chorus to each song she puts on, while mixing drinks. A few friends sitting at the high-tops along the exterior of the bar spontaneously erupt in yelling, “We missed you Wednesday!” as one of their other friends walks up and pours herself a beer from their pitcher.
The early Friday evening scene couldn’t be more indicative of what places like The Harbor Room stand for in the constant corporate-washing of businesses in hyper-local communities. It’s much more than just a bar. It’s a living archive of the South Bay neighborhoods like Playa Del Rey, and local families like the Davenports and Blyes. It’s a place where generations gather, memories accumulate, and South Bay identity persists.
Very little has changed at The Harbor Room over the last 50 years. Sure, with Scott at the helm for the last ten, they’ve upgraded to a proper POS system (the older-timers will still hit the ATM so they can use cash), a digital jukebox, a few outdoor high-tops along the sidewalk, some indoor tables, and new plumbing. They’re even dog-friendly (I watched a woman pour a small amount of beer from her bottle into a portable dog bowl for her four-legged companion). Even with the topical upgrades, Scott prides himself on running the place exactly like Bob would have. Photos of relatives, chosen family, and loyal patrons have always lined the limited wall space of the cozy little space, and Scott is proud to add to the artifacts of The Harbor Room’s storied past. A picture of Bob happily standing amongst friends on the golf course hangs right below a photo of Scott and JoAnn in front of the bar, right after they were allowed to reopen during Covid. A coveted pair of trunks worn by the infamous Greg “The Bull” Noll when he first surfed Waimea in ’57 are framed and fastened to the wall in an impossible-to-remove fashion (they are one of Scott’s most prized possessions). And a photo of Scott, JoAnn, and the rest of the family, standing proudly on Scott’s boat, aptly named “Miss Kitty.” They are all mementos of a family that set out to build a business and in the process grew a community.
“Everyone respects this place because of my parents. I have done a very little bit,” says Davenport. “This is 50 years of my parents. I give all credit to them.”