Your Guide to New Year's Eve Revelry in Eagle Rock

New Year’s Eve is fast approaching and if you forgot to make New Year’s Eve plans in the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, Eagle Rock has enough sophisticated dining options and lively drinking destinations to keep you celebrating locally all night long.

—for Vegetarians, Oenophiles, and Rose Parade Float Fans  

This fall, Fatty & Co.’s co-owners Kim Dingle and Chef Aude Charles returned from an eight-month “creative hiatus” with a slightly revised, Mediterranean-influenced menu of vegan and vegetarian options including the popular, recently reinstated mac ’n cheese.

Fatty’s is taking reservations for New Year’s Eve but, according to Dingle, there’s never a prix fixe menu. (Regular entrees run $12-$18.) “People like to choose for themselves,” says Dingle, adding: “We’ll just be pouring champagne and having a good time.” Oenophiles will be thrilled that Fatty’s is offering a 25-percent discount on wines—“for here or to go” according to Dingle—from their well-stocked, already well-priced cellar.

As for entertainment? “Every New Year's Eve, we look forward to the moment … when a huge Rose Parade float passes by in a gaggle of police cars,” says Dingle. “It happens once every year around 9:45 p.m.”

—Celebrate Like Sinatra!

Fans of the Rat Pack, red leather booths, and generous cocktails will want to immediately call Colombo’s Italian Steakhouse and Jazz Club. Reservations are required for the old-school Italian eatery’s three seatings: 5-5:30 p.m., 7-7:30 p.m. and 9-9:30 p.m. They’re almost sold out, but there may be cancellations!

Steak, scampi and pasta are the hands-down faves at this Eagle Rock fixture. (Entrees run $16 to $23.) Steve & Sergio will entertain diners during the first and second seatings, while Blue Soul will perform during the third. There’s a $15 cover charge for the midnight champagne toast and party favors.

—“Everything French, Even the Attitude ...”

In France, New Year’s Eve is called La Saint Sylvestre. In Eagle Rock, Francophiles can look forward to Café Beaujolais’s four-course La Saint Sylvestre Menu, which includes a glass of champagne ($75 a person.) The three appetizer choices are “Duck Pate”, “Smoked Salmon Rillette”, and “Pumpkin and Wild Mushroom Veloute”; the five Main Course offerings include “Roasted Veal in Armagnac and Mushroom Sauce” to “Lobster and Monkfish Stew with Chablis and Saffron”.

True to its “Everything French, Even the Attitude ...” motto, Café Beaujolais has a typically French approach toward dining—they don’t have assigned seatings because they don’t want diners to have to rush through dinner to be out by a certain time.

—Gypsy Flamenco Guitar and Latin-Inspired Fare

Camilo and Amelia Gonzalez always feature great food and great music in a warm and intimate setting. New Year’s Eve at Camilo’s California Bistro promises to be no exception. Chef Camilo seems to wait until last-minute inspiration strikes to finalize the details of his always-delicious, Latin-influenced specials, but he says that in addition to the regular menu, he’ll create three dishes for New Year’s Eve: a beef, a fish, and a pasta special, which will range from $19.95 to $28.95. Dinner is served from 6 p.m. through 10 p.m.; there are no set seatings.

End 2011 in a lively fashion with Nicaraguan-born gypsy flamenco guitarist Roger Espinoza, who performs Rumba Catalana-style music: a mix of “gypsy rhythms, salsa, and rumba” popularized by the Gypsy Kings band. Espinoza will perform from 7 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.

—“Not Soon … Forgotten!”

Eagle Rock’s Coffee Table Lounge is celebrating its first New Year’s Eve this year—and they promise the no-cover celebration will be a night to remember. Revelers can look forward to music, a full bar, a prize drawing, the full menu—which features bar food faves like chili nachos and chicken wings—available all night long, and a countdown with complimentary champagne that will “… not soon be forgotten!”

—“It’s Going to be … Crazy”

It was a little harder to pin down New Year’s Eve festivities at the hugely popular Black Boar Bar but here’s the scoop straight from behind the bar. “We’ll probably have a couple of drink specials—all I know is that it’s going to be really crazy,” said one on-duty bartender. "There will be $6 drink specials and Happy Hour until 8 p.m.," added a second, cute, top-knotted bartender. “And definitely a champagne toast at midnight. Shhh. I can’t talk about it.

Wherever you choose to celebrate, Eagle Rockers, have fun and be safe!