Directly opposite the Sears Roebuck building in downtown Los Angeles, California, Swally’s was a restaurant and cocktail bar, with banqueting facilities.

This 1959 menu shows its location on a hand-drawn map, marking its proximity to Hollywood, City Hall and the Rose Bowl. The Santa Ana Freeway, now part of the I-5, had been completed three years before.

Swally’s was first and foremost a steakhouse and offered a huge set-dinner and a la carte menu. Wine cost 40c a glass.

There was a cocktail bar, banqueting facilities and a Key Club – we assume this was type of private members’ club.

We found an old advertisement in the Los Angeles Daily News gossip column mentioning that the entertainer Jack Philips had ‘moved his organ and his piano over to the splendid cocktail lounge in Swally’s where the food is scrumptious.’

We believed Swally’s closed down in the 70s and the location was demolished soon afterwards.