Golden Road's Tony Yanow Opening Beer-Focused Westwood Restaurant

There’s no keeping Tony Yanow down, as the Golden Road Brewing co-founder reveals surprise plans to partner with a group that’s opening yet another beer-focused space around town, this time in Westwood in the former Yamato space.

The longtime restaurateur and craft beer lover — Yanow also owns and operates Mohawk Bend in Echo Park and Tony’s Darts Away in Burbank — was relatively quiet on the business front after his local company’s acquisition by beer behemoth AB InBev in 2015. But now he’s jumping back into the fray in a big way, first picking up a short-lived restaurant space in the Valley to resurface with his very own brewpub. That’s at the former Marlin & Ono address in Sherman Oaks, which is perhaps better known to locals as the site of a long-running Señor Fred’s.

Now Yanow is part of a larger team that’s stepping into Westwood proper. Unlike the Valley, where land is more plentiful (and less expensive), the so-called Artisanal Brewers Collective behind the project plan to drop something big right into Westwood Village at the site of Yamato. The Westwood Boulevard restaurant nearly hit the decade mark, but ultimately came up for grabs earlier this year.

So what’s the plan with the unnamed Yamato project in Westwood? Hard to say just yet, as Yanow is focusing up on his Valley project first (and is only part of a larger group at the new site). Still he’ll have his hands in the craft beer side of things to be sure, though the ABC license for the address offers a full booze line in conjunction with a sit-down eating place. More on this one as it comes, but don’t expect an opening until early 2018.

• Golden Road Co-Founder Tony Yanow to Open His Own Valley Brewpub [ELA]
• Karl Strauss Rethinks the Modern Brewpub in Downtown [ELA]