Finding Public Restrooms in Los Angeles

Do You Need to Pee and Can’t Find a Toilet in Los Angeles?

Is it tough to find a place to relieve yourself in Los Angeles? Do business owners and venues frown on providing their patrons with a place to pee? Indeed, sometimes, you’ll walk into a restaurant, and the establishment won’t have any toilets for customers, even if you’re a paying customer. This can become quite an inconvenience if you’re away from your hotel or motel and decide to down a 24-ounce coffee in the morning.

If you’re a Los Angeles native, you probably already know all of the places where you can go to the bathroom, as well as the quality of those various bathrooms. There’s the “WHOA, I NEED TO GO” bathroom, where you don’t mind at all about the smell and condition of it. There’s also the “I just want to go so I don’t need to go later” bathroom, which you might be a little pickier about.

Either way, it’s important to realize that public restrooms, bathrooms, toilets, or whatever you want to call them are definitely not universal. Just because you walk into a business in Downtown LA and buy something from them doesn’t mean they’ll also have a toilet for you to use. In some cases, you can save yourself a lot of time and energy by knowing the types of establishments where there are almost never going to be any facilities for you to use.

Likewise, there are some places in the United States where you’ll almost always find a bathroom, but getting to use it may be a little more difficult than using it in other places. In some areas, business owners put locks and combinations on their toilets, so you have to ask someone for the code.

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My Go-To Places to Pee in Los Angeles

When you live in a city, you get to know what establishments have bathrooms and which don’t, which makes it easier to head out somewhere without worrying about whether you’ll be able to find a toilet somewhere. Public bathrooms aren’t exceedingly rare in Los Angeles, but that doesn’t mean you can stroll in absolutely anywhere and ask for the restroom.

If I’m going out but don’t plan on patronizing any businesses, the best places to go to the bathroom, assuming you aren’t near a public park with public bathrooms, are big box stores and grocery stores. That means places like Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart, and grocery stores like Ralph’s, Vons, and Albertsons.

Bear in mind, however, that the one hang-up you might find with grocery stores and toilets is that they’ll sometimes lock them, make you get a key, or put a combination lock on them, so you have to ask an employee for the code or key. This isn’t a huge hassle, but it is an additional step you’ll need to take if you decide to stroll into a grocery store and use the bathroom.

Basically, if you see a large store somewhere, even if it’s not one of the stores I’ve named above, there’s almost always going to be a bathroom, and those bathrooms are usually a bit cleaner than the ones you’ll find in gas stations, which don’t even always have bathrooms these days. If I’m in an area I don’t know well in Los Angeles or any of the surrounding cities, I just look for a grocery store, a Target, or a Wal-Mart for a bathroom.

Ask a Local for Bathroom Locations in Los Angeles

If you’re in a bind and you absolutely have to go to the bathroom without delay, you can always ask someone in the first business you pass. Even if the tiny coffee shop you visit doesn’t have a public bathroom, sometimes asking and saying “please” will be enough. Americans, by and large, are pretty friendly, and that goes for most of the immigrants you’ll interact with throughout the city, too.

Yes, sometimes you’ll encounter a business owner or employee who just won’t let you use the bathroom, but it still never hurts to ask, especially if it’s an emergency. If you’re traveling with a child, you have an even greater chance of getting a chance to use the toilet. Almost no one will deny a child the opportunity to go to the bathroom, especially when they look like they really need to use it.

If it turns out that you absolutely can’t use the bathroom, ask the person if they know where there’s an available place. They might get the question frequently, and they might know exactly which direction to send you. Even if you’re just walking down the street, you can ask other pedestrians about a bathroom. It’s rare that someone won’t have time for you when you ask them for the location of a toilet. Or just pop your head into a restaurant or business to ask.

Plus, once you know where you can find a bathroom, you can always go back to it later in the day, especially if you’re visiting one area for several hours and need a return visit. If you’re on a tour of downtown LA for a few hours or you’re strolling around Santa Monica for the afternoon, you can use the same bathroom more than once after you find it.

Need a Bathroom? You’ll Usually Get Nowhere In a Minimart or Pharmacy

There are a few types of establishments in Los Angeles where you just shouldn’t bother to try and go to the bathroom. The first is a mini-mart like Circle-K, 7-11, or any little convenience store that’s not otherwise connected to a gas station. From my experience, they never have bathrooms. They just don’t want to bother with the hassle and expense. Maybe they’re too cheap to provide public facilities. Even if they have an employees-only bathroom, it doesn’t matter how nice you are; they won’t let you use the toilet.

Either way, I’ve almost never found an available bathroom in a convenience store unless it was part of a gas station. And then, only sometimes will you find a bathroom. If you’ve rented a car to drive around Los Angeles and you’re filling up at a Chevron station, there’s a decent chance you’ll find a bathroom inside the associated convenience store. But even then, you’re not guaranteed access to a bathroom.

Another type of store that never has bathrooms in Los Angeles is a pharmacy like Walgreens, CVS, or Rite-Aid. I’m pretty sure these establishments are referred to as “chemists” in some parts of Europe. Maybe “apothecaries.” Basically, they’re the places you go to get medicine and doctor’s prescriptions. They don’t have bathrooms, even if they’re located in a huge store with all sorts of other goods for sale.

These days, some pharmacies are large enough that they look like a small Target or a grocery store, but they still won’t provide bathrooms. I feel like it has something to do with the presence of drugs and the opportunity someone might take to do something nefarious in the bathroom with the store’s products. Just don’t bother going in a pharmacy – large or small – to try and find a bathroom, because you won’t find one.

Don’t Risk Dehydration Because You Can’t Find a Bathroom

There’s something I used to do when I traveled to avoid going to the bathroom, and that was simply avoiding any drinks. I have the smallest bladder on the planet (seriously, I’ll compare it to anyone’s and I firmly believe I’ll win!), and I’m always on the hunt for a bathroom. Over the years, I got into the terrible habit of just avoiding water and any other sort of drink so I wouldn’t need to find a bathroom.

This is a very dangerous habit because dehydration is a real thing that can mess you up royally, especially if you travel to Los Angeles in the summer, when the weather often greets us with broilingly hot temperatures, from Downtown to the Pacific coast. You need to keep hydrated while walking around Los Angeles on a tour, and you shouldn’t sacrifice your health because you don’t think you’ll have access to a bathroom.

Honestly, if you’re so concerned that you plan on drinking less than usual, especially during a heat wave in Los Angeles, at least consider adding some sort of electrolyte booster to your water. You don’t need to buy a bottle of Gatorade (definitely more expensive than tap water and your own bottle) and can usually get those electrolyte powders and additives pretty cheaply from the grocery store or any quickie mart.

And note, too, that Los Angeles has very drinkable tap water. Sure, the pipes might be a little old in some places, but you can definitely fill up at a public drinking fountain in Los Angeles and get good water. So, the moral of the story is: never change your normal drinking habits because you are worried about finding a toilet on vacation. Sometimes, it can take a few minutes to find a bathroom in Los Angeles, but it’s never impossible and often just takes asking a few people for the nearest one or walking into a nearby grocery store.

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