Some evenings need one unexpected stop. Keep the dinner plan, then let a live show or a few songs change where the night goes. These two combinations start with something familiar and leave room for a discovery.
2. Keep dinner. Add a little Poe.
For dinner in Old Pasadena on a Saturday, build the evening around Parson's Nose Theater.
"A Nightmare on Poe Street," a live Edgar Allan Poe adaptation staged in a 1922 former funeral home, plays Saturday, October 17 and 24, at 7 p.m. The theater is at 95 N. Marengo Avenue. It's ticketed, and the stories are properly dark, so leave the kids at home.
Eat early nearby, catch the show, then see how the familiar streets feel on the walk back. One extra stop gives dinner a different ending.
1. Give takeout a live soundtrack
For an evening near LACMA, make dinner and live music the same stop.
On Friday, October 23, Marina Pacowski plays Jazz at LACMA from 6–8 p.m. on the Smidt Welcome Plaza. The concert is free, and that night's food trucks are Tirzahs Mexi-terranean, Earle's and Home Brewed Bar. Food costs extra.
Choose something to eat and catch part of the performance. You've replaced dinner at home with dinner somewhere the music is happening in front of you.