Please define mid afternoon? Rustic Canyon Wine Bar is superb and one of the hottest restaurants in L. A. right now (#6 in Jonathan Gold's top 100 L. A. restaurants) but it does not open until 5:00PM. Ten minutes from LAX in Santa Monica-we went a month ago and loved it. On par wtih Red Hen or Rose's; extremely creative.
Superb wine list heavy on Central Coast wines.
If the time works it would be my first choice of any.
Press reports on Rustic Canyon including LA Times and New York Times: