Bar Keeps

A Collection of California’s Best Cocktail Napkins

by Patrick Quinn

¡Salud! A Votre Sante! Skol! Oogie Wawa! Cheers! Raise your spirits and lift your favorite glass to Bar Keeps—A Collection of California’s Best Cocktail Napkins, the happiest gift book ever!

For everyone who ever sipped a martini, guzzled a brewski, or got zonked on a Zombie, Bar Keeps is a fun and fabulous tour of cocktail culture in the Golden State. Whether you’re the type to visit roadside diners, chic hotels, hidden dives, fancy restaurants, tiki bars, or, ahem, the neighborhood exotic dancer’s nightclub, napkin collector Patrick Quinn, author of Bar Keeps, probably beat you there and found a vintage cocktail napkin as a souvenir.

Do you know how the cocktail got its name? Ever wonder why pink elephants symbolize a pixelated good time? Or have you asked yourself why napkins pictured women rolling naked in champagne glasses? Quinn answers those and other startling questions and provides a loopy look at how bars and cocktail napkins bonded.

Not into drinking? Lots of people aren’t, but who doesn’t want a visual treat, a good laugh, and a look back at the Golden State in its golden age? Quinn guides a rollicking road trip with stops in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, Bakersfield, and points between—all with cocktail napkins to savor..

If you’ve had a tropical extravaganza at Trader Vic’s in Oakland, watched the dancers at the Chinese Sky Room in San Francisco’s Chinatown, downed a G&T at Joe DiMaggio’s Grotto on Fisherman’s Wharf, sat with stars at the Hollywood Palladium, had a hot toddy at Fred Harvey’s in LA’s Union Station, or just swooned to Rudy de la Mor singing at Little Shrimp in Laguna—the glow of riotous evenings will all come back as you flip through Bar Keeps—a book full of memories, ready to make you and your favorite gift-worthy pals smile. Read responsibly! Here’s to you!

128 pages
9"h x 9"w
500+ images
hardcover; ISBN 978-1-62640-097-9; $30.00

About the author and the designer:

A longtime Angeleno, Patrick Quinn is a production designer at Universal Studios. He visits swap meets and antique malls, adding to his ever-growing collections of lounge music LPs, 1970s snapshots, Western Union telegrams, early travel guides, and, of course, cocktail napkins.

An avid Los Angeles historian, designer J. Eric Lynxwiler celebrates his city as co-author and designer of many ACP books including Wilshire Boulevard, Knott’s Berry Farm, and Spectacular Illumination, and hosts neon cruises for the Museum of Neon Art in Glendale, California.