The Dume Room closed for good five years ago this month. It was vacant for a few years, and now a Subway sandwich shop has moved in. Progress? Of a sort, I suppose.

Meanwhile, from a commentary I wrote for NPR:

Tucked between a tiny dry cleaners and a take-out pizza joint, the Dume Room is the last gasp of rough-and-rowdy blue-collar Malibu. It's where the waitresses and welders, construction workers and conmen come after a hard day's work, where local celebs like...