What Happened to Beer Belly After Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives?

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, Season 16, Episode 11 Aired March 11, 2013

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives visited Beer Belly in Los Angeles for the 2013-03-11 episode "Unlikely Partners," where the show sampled the gastropub's beer-battered bar food and craft beer selection. Beer Belly operated in the Koreatown neighborhood at 532 South Western Avenue. According to LAmag (2019-07), the Koreatown location was set to close that month. A Yelp listing for the address, updated 2026-06, still marks the business as permanently closed. A site check on 2026-09-08 found the restaurant's website (beerbellyla.com) returning no response, consistent with the closure.

No source confirming a reopening or new ownership at the Western Avenue address was found. Koreatown, the Los Angeles neighborhood where Beer Belly operated, is one of the city's densest restaurant and nightlife corridors, and no review or social post from 2020 or later describing the restaurant as still open turned up in the sources reviewed.

Food Paradise, Season 4, Episode 18 Aired 2013

On Food Paradise's 2013 episode 'Deep Fried Paradise 3: Grease is the Word' (Travel Channel), the show visited Beer Belly, a craft-beer bar in the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles, spotlighting the bar's over-the-top deep-fried snacks alongside its rotating beer list. Beer Belly opened in Koreatown as a gastropub built around craft beer and inventive bar food. According to LAmag, the Koreatown location closed on July 28, 2019, after eight years in business; co-founder Jimmy Han said the team felt they had accomplished what they set out to do with the original location. A Long Beach location of Beer Belly continued operating after the Koreatown closure, per the same report.