Do Celebs Drink Beer in LA? The Elbow Room Encino

Because there’s a fantastic new gastropub-style restaurant opening in Encino, on Ventura Blvd in (basically) LA. The Elbow Room (elbowroomencinco.com) features a killer craft beer selection, absolutely scrumptious grass-fed beef burgers, ribs, and meatballs, and more—including waffle sammies.

Basically, celebs are about to start faux celebs like me already frequent this not-even-open-yet culinary destination.

[obvious disclaimer] My friend is the owner and he’s awesome. He hired an absolutely amazing chef. Who has been featured on Food Network. They both decided they should only serve grass-fed beef and free-range chickens (happy chicks and cows, he says), 100% gluten-free (yep, the waffles are g-free!), and incredible beer. Boom. Awesome restaurant is born. That opens tomorrow.

<–that’s the menu. Ignore the apostrophe abuse, we talked about that.

I got to check The Elbow Room out last week during the soft opening, and it was rad. Food was really, really  good, and I’d go so far as to say the beef short ribs were absurdly good. In fact, someone said “It is worth battling fair type traffic* for another lick of those bones.” Lamb burgers were delicious. Sweet potato fries. Guacamole. All things that I love to eat.

On the (long) drive up from Newport Beach, I had it in my head that I was going to drink some wine.

Silly me.

The beer list is too ridiculous(ly good) not to drink beer. There was an IPA (I hate!) comparable to the only other IPA I’ve ever purchased—as in excellent, the Fat Tire Pumpkick with cranberry, and a Dudes’s Grandma Pecan I could not get enough of. These were just the drafts, there are more in bottles and even more in cans. Cans are a big deal here, a lil throwback and always $3, only $2.50 during happy hour—which is every day 5-7p and 10p-close.

The Elbow Room is in an innocuous upstairs space not much larger than an Orange County living room, 8 tables coated in chalkboard paint (chalk is supplied) are surrounded by matched mismatched chairs and a swooping bar. There’s a carousel out front of the shopping center, and there’s fro-yo and massages also in the center. But this restaurant is going to be a local hotspot, with rock ‘n roll playing and a come-one-come-all vibe.

Seriously, if you’re anywhere near LA, go to The Elbow Room. 16101 Ventura Blvd #255

GRAND OPENING tomorrow, Wednesday, Oct. 2. Opens daily at 11a for lunch, goes on through ’til 10p on school nights, midnight on weekends. Closed on Sundays. For beach time, naturally.

*for the uninitiated, fair traffic is the worst type of traffic