From KCRW, I'm Evan Kliman. You're listening to good food.

If you're on the dance floor at 1.30 dancing, I could sell you a piece of cheesecake.

And the big rush is when we're closing the lineup up the bakery

gets extremely long because people want to take our desserts home.

Ah the Abbey home of the 10 ounce martini, drag brunch, and yes, really good pastries.

With four bars, two dance floors, a bakery and a restaurant spread out over 16,000 square feet, the Abbey is a West Hollywood

juggernaut. But when David Cooley opened it in 1991, it was just a humble cafe. How has it survived for more than 30 years

through the height of the AIDS crisis, the COVID pandemic, and the current backlash

against gay and trans rights,

we decided to ask, David Cooley is the subject of this week's

in the weeds.

Hello, my name is David Cooley and I am the CEO of the Abbey Food and Bar as well as its

neighboring nightclub, the chapel. The Abbey has just celebrated this past May, 32 years and if you double that number you get my age.

So I've realized I have spent half my life working and creating a business of the Abbey.

I started in a small town in Ohio called Solon and after my first college year at Ashland I moved over to the

University of Nevada Las Vegas with a degree in hotel administration.

I decided the last two months that I have to accept who I am and started visiting West Hollywood

and found out that this is the destination that I want to live.

I disappointed my parents and the dean because they had other plans of job offers,

but I moved to Los Angeles,

especially West Hollywood, without anything.

I mean, I cleaned houses, I waited tables,

...