Everyone walking past 8737 Santa Monica Blvd. this week has been stopping to read the notice taped to the door. Jay Krymis knows. He’s the one who put it there.
The owner of Schmitty’s sat down with WEHOonline Sunday and didn’t dodge anything. The suspension, the history, the midlife crisis he mentioned almost in passing, the 24 years he spent running one of the raunchiest (and best) bars in West Hollywood before COVID closed it for good. He talked through all of it.
“It’s really kind of a non-issue,” he said. “But a little one.”
He’s been in this neighborhood long enough to know the difference. Krymis grew up in a small town in Michigan. One traffic light, he said. He ended up in Philadelphia, then worked his way across the East Coast before landing in Los Angeles, where he’s opened more than a dozen bars and restaurants over the past 25 years. He got his start as a dishwasher at a seafood restaurant outside Philadelphia. He said he fell in love with it immediately — not the dishes, but the feeling of a room full of people who wanted to be there.
West Hollywood became home. He opened Rafters, then turned it into Fubar in 1999. For nearly 25 years, Fubar at 7994 Santa Monica Blvd. was one of the most reliably filthy bars in Boystown. Big Fat Dick Night on Thursdays. Adonis Lounge on Wednesdays. Go-go dancers every weekend. Krymis doesn’t apologize for any of it.
“If I hadn’t gotten in trouble, it’d still be Fubar,” he said. “I’d like that kind of a place.”
The trouble came a calling before COVID did. The City started circling with some calls first, then “being called into the principal’s office” with a meeting at City Hall, then visits. The go-go dancers were the issue — touching, proximity, the City’s rules shifting year to year on what was and wasn’t allowed.
“We were pushing it for sure,” Krymis said. “Big Fat Dick Night. All that.”
COVID shut Fubar down in 2020 before the City could. He said that was kinda the silver lining. He officially shut the bar in 2022, gutted the space, and built Mic’s there — a genuinely mixed bar, gay and straight, that he says has already found its crowd.
“It’s been really beautiful,” he said. “A really nice community. Everybody is welcome.”
Schmitty’s was inspired by something different. The GymBar space near Hancock had sat empty for a while. Krymis got it cheap. He didn’t want another Fubar. He wanted a bar bar. The kind of place that has ACT UP posters on the wall and a regular who comes in on a Tuesday because he doesn’t have anywhere else to be.
“A place you’d go to celebrate a birthday,” he said. “But also a place you’d go if a friend passed away. A real community bar.”
The name was inspired by Will and Grace and the iconic Karen Walker. You might recall her good friend and bartender — Schmitty. That’s who the bar is named after. Krymis said he wanted something that sounded like a bar without sounding like every other bar on the boulevard. He settled on it hours before opening night.
Then COVID’s financial hangover caught up with him.
He told us how he’d fallen behind on state fees during the pandemic. The state put him on a payment plan. When he switched banks, he forgot to update the automatic withdrawals. The payments stopped without him noticing.
“I wasn’t paying close attention,” he said. “Which is where I’m at my biggest fault.”
By the time he found out, he owed the balance in full. He paid it. But the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration still had to notify the ABC, and that took time. Schmitty’s stayed open during that window. When the ABC came in and found the bar operating, the original penalty was 25 days.
“I said, you gotta be kidding me,” he said.
He hired a lawyer. The lawyer got the penalty down to 10 days with no fine. He was going to close anyway, so he used the time for a remodel he’d been planning. He timed it to Coachella weekend, when foot traffic on the boulevard slows.
“It’s a good weekend to close,” he said. “So let’s close, and we’re gonna put in a new draft system, clean up the bathrooms, add booths, more TVs. It was a mess in there, man.”
There’s one more thing to know about Jay Krymis, and it explains something about why he fits in a town like this. He’s been a working actor for 30 years. He was part of the ensemble cast of Traffic, the Steven Soderbergh film that won four Academy Awards, and earned a Screen Actors Guild Award for it. He’s appeared in Erin Brockovich, Get Him to the Greek and a string of other films and television projects, and has won a couple of Best Supporting Actor awards. He and his wife Michel, who run everything together, also produced an eight-episode series called In the Big House that sold to Viacom. He recently wrapped his first lead role in a feature film and is currently appearing in a nationwide Stanley Steemer commercial. He said acting and running bars aren’t as different as they sound.
The vibe
“I want to make it more like a cozy, neighborhoody kind of place,” he said of Schmitty’s. “Somewhere you come and feel like it’s home.”
The remodel will add booth and bench seating, more televisions, draft beer and pitchers. Jay says there will be taller plants along the outdoor alley for privacy. More neons. He’s thinking about maybe bringing back the pool table.
“We’re not reinventing the wheel,” he said. “Just leaning into the bar.”
He’s in his 50s now. He said the late nights and chaos that came with running Fubar don’t interest him the way they used to.
“I can’t be coming to the bar at 1:45 when I hear about two of the boys fighting,” he said. “Been there, done that.”
Tuesday karaoke has moved to Mic’s Bar in Los Angeles while Schmitty’s is dark. Krymis said he plans to reopen the week of April 26.
“I want it to feel even more cozy than it does now,” he said. “Even more welcoming. That’s it.”
Mic’s bar in Los Angeles??? There’s one in LA as well as WEHO?
HOT DUDE!
i say this closes soon.