Stones Throw Turns 30 on a Block It Spent 25 Years Shaping

In September, Chris Manak walked into his Highland Park bar, Gold Line, carrying a bearded dragon. Manak is Peanut Butter Wolf, founder of Stones Throw Records, and the lizard was Sweet Pea. He was minding the bearded dragon for the afternoon. The Los Angeles Times reported that Sweet Pea climbed over stacks of vinyl in a bar on the ground floor of the label's offices, which take up half a block on Figueroa.

Manak founded Stones Throw in 1996, and on October 16 through 18 the label celebrates its 30th anniversary. The party is a three-day outdoor festival next to that same headquarters. The Lodge Room event pages list all three days as sold out. Most neighbors won't be inside the fence, but they already go to what the label built here. Over 25 years, a record company's taste in how music should be heard has spread from one building to the bars and storefronts around Avenue 56 and Figueroa.

Twenty-Five Years Upstairs

Stones Throw didn't start on Figueroa. The Los Angeles Times reported in 2015 that Manak ran the label from his home in Mount Washington before finding a space on Figueroa Street in 2001. In the same story he gave the location as Avenue 56 and Figueroa, and the label has stayed there since.

By 2015, the label had taken over two storefronts beneath its second-floor offices. That detail matters more than it seems. A label whose offices sit above the street has always been part of the street. The catalog includes Madvillain's "Madvillainy," a record the Times credits with influencing Tyler, the Creator and Ye. It also includes a Grammy win for the NxWorries album with Anderson .Paak. All of it came out of a building at a Highland Park intersection, not out of a high-rise office.

Manak said as much about his reasons. "I loved the music scene in L.A. and that's what I moved here for more than anything, not for the industry," he told the Times.

One Room, Then the Room Across the Street

Gold Line is where the label's private taste became public. Los Angeles Magazine reported that the bar opened at 5607 N. Figueroa in fall 2018, in the building that had housed Stones Throw's offices for years. Manak described the origin to the Times. The space had hosted private parties, including one where he stacked crates of records floor to ceiling and let other people DJ with his collection. Later he learned about Japan's listening bars and wanted one of his own.

He also addressed who the room is for. "Someone said it's gonna be all middle-aged white men in here, but good music brings people from all walks of life together," he said. "Our oldest DJ is in his 70s." He treats the DJ bookings as part of the label's job, too. Many of the up-and-coming artists he works with don't have 9-to-5 jobs and DJ three nights a week at different places, he said, and having DJs at the bar "helps them pay their bills."

Now the idea has crossed Figueroa. Palomino, at 5630 N. Figueroa, comes from the Gold Line team across the street and fills the old ETA space. In the same interview, the Times described Manak as having opened Palomino recently. Time Out reviewed it on September 22, 2026, and gave it four out of five stars. The review describes stained-glass light fixtures, a disco ball, a large front window that opens the entrance to the sidewalk, and DJs on weekends.

The drinks follow the same approach of careful curation in a casual room. Time Out called out a Limonada it placed between a Saturn and a Brazilian lemonade, and a pear elderflower martini made with Suze and Mexican rum. Signature cocktails run $18, and a "Quickies" section of two-ingredient drinks costs a few dollars less. Palomino is open from 5 p.m. every night and stays open until 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

Gold Line came first and Palomino followed, but they share one premise: records played on a good system in a room built for listening. The Times put it directly. Gold Line "set a precedent for L.A. bars that are meant for close listening to records on a great hi-fi."

The Block, Address by Address

Taken together, the stretch of Figueroa around Avenue 56 now reads like a short history of the label's influence, with a few newer arrivals mixed in.

The Newest Door Up the Street

Mokja isn't a music business, but it was built on the same model of a known name trying a new format on Figueroa. The Korean cafe and market comes from chef Debbie Lee and Frank and Michelle La of Be Bright Coffee. It opened Friday, August 7, next door to Yi Cha, Lee's modern pocha. Eater reported that the menu includes a build-your-own instant ramen bar, sandwiches, grab-and-go banchan, and cafe drinks from Frank La, the 2024 U.S. Barista Champion. The mayak egg sando and the misugaru latte were in Eater's headline, and a braised oxtail hand pie was in its photos.

The Highland Park location comes first. Eater reported that Mokja plans a second outpost at OC Vibe in Orange County sometime in 2027. Figueroa is where the concept gets its test run, the same role the street played for the listening bar.

The turnover runs both ways. Delicias Bakery and Some, a Highland Park bakery open for 35 years, closed in June 2026. Eater reported that the bakery added new menu items as new businesses opened along Figueroa Street and Avenue 56. For anyone who bought conchas there, the anniversary weekend comes a few months after one of the block's oldest counters closed.

The Weekend Itself

The festival is presented by Lodge Room, Stones Throw and KCRW, and the host listing places it at the Lodge Room Outdoor Stage, 104 N. Avenue 56. The lineup tells the same story as the block. Manak told the Times he started with artists releasing records now, then added the label's first rappers, Rasco and Planet Asia, along with The Architect and Wildchild. Some of them haven't played shows in a long time.

Per the Lodge Room listings, the three days look like this:

• Friday, Oct. 16, doors at 6 p.m., all ages. Automatic, Los Retros, Sudan Archives, N8NOFACE, Gabriel Da Rosa and Angela Muñoz.
• Saturday, Oct. 17, doors at 2 p.m. Peanut Butter Wolf, a Tuxedo DJ set, A-Trak, Dâm-Funk, J.Rocc, Karriem Riggins, Wildchild & DJ Romes, Mndsgn, Rasco & Planet Asia, The Koreatown Oddity, The Architect, Fanatik, Aloe Blacc and Eric Andre.
• Sunday, Oct. 18, doors at 2 p.m. Mild High Club, Egyptian Lover, John Carroll Kirby, Bardo, Michi, Gary Wilson, Jerry Paper, Lionmilk, Vex Ruffin, Maylee Todd and Kyle Mooney.

The event listing covers Friday at 5 p.m. through Sunday at 11:30 p.m. Tickets were $75 for general admission and $150 for a three-day pass, fees included, before the days sold out. The event materials we reviewed don't mention street closures, parking or nightly end times, so check the venue's own channels as the weekend gets closer.

Manak named Lodge Room in the Times interview as one of the small venues that "nurture the scene." A sold-out anniversary at that venue's outdoor stage, a short walk from the bar on the ground floor of the label's offices and the bar across from it, ties the label's whole time on Figueroa together. The weekend's offstage options are the year-round ones. Palomino opens at 5 p.m. and runs until 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday, and Mokja is up the street at 5715 N. Figueroa. For anyone who wants more of the music before or after the festival, Manak recently joined KCRW as a DJ. His show airs once a month, and he told the Times he's been using it to play a lot of unknown records.

What a building holds, and who has filled it over the years, is the kind of history Sarah Minka Jackson pays attention to on every Highland Park street. If you live near Avenue 56 and are curious how the character of your block shows up in your home's story, let's connect over coffee at Mokja.