How an unassuming Echo Park hangout made the World’s 50 Best Bars list.
, an annual ranking chosen by the anonymous votes of some 600 industry professionals across the globe.
“We opened six months before the pandemic hit. We weren’t profitable yet. Everything shut down,” said Mike Capoferri, 35, Thunderbolt’s co-owner and lead bartender. “Every day I would ask myself, ‘Is it crazy to keep doing this? Do I close the doors?’”It was a highly personal decision for Capoferri, whose name, fittingly, means “iron-headed” in Italian.
It was a chance encounter with restaurateur Rahul Marwah in 2013, however, that sent Capoferri’s career in a new direction. Marwah is the second-generation CEO of Denco Family, a Whittier-based company that operates franchises of Denny’s, Subway, Popeyes and various hotel chains across Southern California. Denco Family’s latest endeavor was unique: It was opening the first Denny’s in New York City, complete with a full liquor license.
As the build-out dragged on for months, and then years, Capoferri filled his time with a new position as a brand ambassador for the Campari Group, traveling to as many as 120 bars per month, touting Italian aperitifs and amari at fancy speakeasies and gritty dives. The job enabled him to glean insight from the country’s best bartenders, take notes on prevailing drink trends and generally immerse himself in the latest gadgetry of cocktail-making.
“About 75% of our regulars live within walking distance,” he said. “We had this mentality that you had to win the neighborhood first to be a great bar.” Despite the popular image of a mustachioed barman chipping blocks of ice by hand or plucking fresh herbs to order, this streamlined approach has become increasingly common at the country’s highest echelon of cocktail bars, as many bartenders look to strip away what Capoferri calls the “pomp and circumstance” of the mixology movement.
One highlight from the most recent holiday menu was the “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Buttered Rum,” a vegan riff made with a hydrocolloid-emulsified coconut oil syrup and kept warm in a sous vide circulator. “You’re ensuring the drink is preserved at its peak,” he explained. “We’ve opened some that are months old, and they still taste as good as when they were canned.”