Bodega Wine Bar Review: Santa Monica’s Best Day-to-Night Spot

All PostsLos Angeles EatsLiving in Los Angeles
Written By Amy Suto
Two glasses of wine on a wooden table like an evening at Bodega Wine Bar in Santa Monica

Every neighborhood needs one shapeshifter — the place that’s a laptop café at 2pm and a candlelit somewhere at 8. In Santa Monica, that’s Bodega Wine Bar.

Bodega is a coffee shop and a wine bar in one room near the water in Santa Monica, and it’s a great day-to-night spot: co-work through the afternoon with a proper coffee, then watch the same room turn into one of the Westside’s easiest date venues, with good bites bridging the transition.

Bodega by Day, Bodega by Night

Day mode: coffee, wifi, and a lounge-y room that doesn’t rush you — a legitimately good remote-work perch. Night mode: wine, small plates, and the kind of low lighting that makes everyone’s day sound more interesting. The trick is refusing to leave between the two.

It’s been doing this double shift on Broadway since 2006, which in restaurant years makes it approximately immortal.

The Verdict on Bodega Wine Bar

  • Best for: Work-to-date-night handoffs · Santa Monica afternoons that get away from you (pleasantly)
  • The move: Arrive with a laptop, leave with a dinner companion
  • Where: 814 Broadway, Santa Monica (Google Maps) · bodegawinebar.com

Bodega closes out my best restaurants & coffee shops in Los Angeles list on exactly the right note: day work, night play, no commute between them.

For more places worth your appetite: the best restaurants in San Francisco (home turf) and my LA list (old stomping grounds). Subscribe to my newsletter for new reviews as the research continues — I spent five years rating restaurants around the world in my travel guides, and old habits die delicious.