The Yard House Preview Pre-Grand Opening Northridge, CA 12/1/2012

I frequent the Yard House in Downtown LA – it’s my favorite destination for both pre- and post-concert and sporting event activities in LA Live.   Whether it’s for lunch, early happy hour, dinner, or reverse happy hour, I go often.

My wife and I attended the pre-grand opening at the newest Yard House in Northridge, CA, located just outside the Northridge Fashion Mall off of Tampa.

We got there early and scoped out the establishment from the outside before taking a lap around the mall.  It’s in a great location and the patio faces the movie theater just across the parking lot.

Upon entry, we were given wristbands and drink tickets as we were greeted at the door by the eager and friendly staff.

  

Once inside, we were floored by how spacious and decked out it was.

We circled the bar and found a table.   We were immediately greeted by our server Sean, who took our drink orders, discussed the menu and answered the many questions of my inquisitive wife.   He also said the Surf-n-Turf burger was his favorite menu item, so I knew he was a good guy right there…

After taking our drink order, the rounds of food started right up.   Being right near the kitchen certainly had its advantages in previewing all the food coming out………

……..it was overwhelming in a good way!

 

Almost instantaneously, we had pizza, spinach dip, summer salad and Ahi tuna to sample.

The four small plates multiplied as we sampled all the goodness on the menu and numerous servers greeted us with more and more items.  One plate would come and another would be taken away.   Everyone was so kind, friendly and attentive.     My wife and I just kept smiling at one another and asking ourselves “why can’t all dining experiences be this cool?” 

Our table looked like a work of art with the ahi poke, spinach dip, Shitaake garlic noodles, chicken garlic noodles, Ahi sashimi, crab cakes, California Roll, Grilled Sweet Korean BBQ Beef (a favorite of my wife’s for the evening), Spinach Cheese Dip (one of my new favorites), summer salad, margherita pizza, and the food just kept coming and it was all quite remarkable.

Bearnaise Sliders, Fried Chicken, Swordfish Tacos, Four Cheese Pizza, Pepperoni and Mushroom, BBQ Chicken, Spicy Thai Chicken – everything was fantastic and I knew I’d be full enough to skip the next few meals!

And what meal at the Yard House would be complete without a few brews and cocktails? 

Before long, the place was hopping, as I imagine it has been and will be since it officially opened earlier today.    There ware some really high-tech televisions here.   I bet football sure was fun to watch here today on Grand Opening day today.

A manager came up and greeted us.   He said there will be a new restaurant opening in Oxnard next year.   Since we’re from Ventura County, we’ll definitely be frequenting that place next year! 

Dessert wasn’t even a consideration (or humanly possible at this point), so we gave our table away to a couple standing at the bar and enjoyed a heat lamp out on the patio while finishing our drinks and enjoying the night air and light rain.

I took a few crowd shots inside as I finished off my beer.

Here’s a shot at one side of the restaurant from our table. 

Parting shot on the way to the car in the rain:

Thank you, Yard House!!   Fantastic job !!  

Spectacular service, great food and staff that really show pride in this fine new restaurant.  

See you again at LA Live tomorrow before the Aerosmith concert at Staples Center!!

I’ll be suggesting some new favorites to my buddies there for our pre-concert feast!