"Afterlife sounds like a goth club, but the mood here skews a bit more cyberpunk, with a lot of recessed neon backlighting and angular 3D-printed geometry. This stretch of Hawthorne historically hasn’t been kind to bars that aren’t named Bagdad or Mulligan’s, but this is a fun addition to the strip. The cocktails are complex and often caffeinated, but the ingredients are thoughtfully balanced against each other. Joints that look like this sometimes serve cloying, overly sweet gamer fuel and overpriced junk food, but the confident cocktail menu and Gnarly’s legendary sidewinder fries make this an extremely viable late-night spot." - Ben Coleman