The Sportsmen's Lodge is a big hotel/restaurant/meeting room complex located out in Studio City at the corner of Coldwater Canyon and Ventura Boulevards. The hotel and restaurant parts are nice but unremarkable. The meeting room complex is interesting because if you're in or around L.A. and you need to hold a luncheon or a dinner or a wedding or any sort of social event that involves feeding people, the odds are you'll wind up at the Sportsmen's Lodge. I don't know how many people I've heard say, "I didn't want to do our event there but I looked around and looked around and couldn't find anyplace else that was practical."
How many times have I been there for meetings and parties and such? I dunno…hundreds, maybe. Years ago when CAPS (The Comic Art Professional Society) was new, I booked its first banquet there because I couldn't find anywhere else at the time. The rooms and grounds are nice…not wonderful but nice. The service is…okay. The food is…
Well, people mock the food as inedible and that may be a misdirected mocking. The Lodge has many different levels of food quality and a group that rents space to hold their event there has to decide which level they want to pay for. The lowest is pretty grim. The highest is…well, not gourmet quality but it's also not something you'd complain much about. Most groups that hold gatherings there do not pay for the best so they don't get it; ergo, the Lodge's rep for low-quality cuisine.
Now then. I'm writing in the present tense about the place but that may not be valid for long. The developer who purchased the place in 2007 is saying that while the hotel and coffee shop will remain intact, the vast portions of choice real estate out there devoted to hosting Bar Mitzvah receptions will soon be torn down and replaced by a humongous shopping center.
This blog makes it sound like a done deal and it may be. But some locals are fighting the plan and this is not the first time it looked like all those banquet rooms and places to hold weddings and memorial services and anniversary celebrations were going away. If they do this time, it's going to leave a big void for some other business to fill. Dozens of events each week will have to take place elsewhere…and I'm not sure where that elsewhere might be. There must be someplace that has a big meeting room, ample parking and an option for food that leaves one salivating for those meals they serve you when you're in a hospital.