Boneyard Bistro Serves Its Last Meal September 12 After 21 Years on Ventura

20 hours ago

4 min read

Last call is Saturday, September 12. If you have been meaning to go, this is the window.

Boneyard Bistro is closing after 21 years on Ventura Boulevard. Chef and owner Aaron Robins announced it on social media, telling followers that after more than 20 years the time had come to say goodbye, and thanking everyone who walked through the doors, shared a meal, celebrated a milestone or brought family and friends. The final service is Saturday, September 12, 2026.

It is worth saying plainly what is being lost. When Boneyard opened in 2005, Ventura Boulevard was not a place anyone went looking for chef-driven barbecue, a 42-tap craft beer wall or a reserve bottle list. Los Angeles Times critic Irene Virbila noted at the time that the restaurant represented a wave of accomplished fine-dining chefs choosing to open unpretentious neighborhood rooms outside the Westside. Two decades later that is the norm across the Valley. Boneyard was near the front of it.

The chef

Robins was born and raised in Encino and bought his own smoker at twelve. What happened between then and Boneyard is the part most obituaries of this restaurant will skip.

He cooked professionally for roughly a decade before opening his own room, training in Chicago at Charlie Trotter's, then in the Bay Area at the Asian fusion restaurant EOS and at The Flying Saucer, where he worked as chef de cuisine alongside Albert Tordjman. He also spent time at Zola and picked up smoke pit technique in Tennessee. By his own count he has more than forty years of live fire cooking behind him.

He came home to Los Angeles after September 11, 2001, to help his father start a family business. Four years later he and his father Preston opened Boneyard Bistro. There is a symmetry in the restaurant's last day landing on September 12 that nobody planned.

The hard years

Speaking to Voyage LA, Robins was unusually candid about how difficult the road was. The original room sat 45 people and ran at capacity, turning customers away nightly. He described the first nine months as a honeymoon nobody could have anticipated, partly because at the time nobody in the Valley made reservations.

Then the first summer arrived, the Valley hit triple digits, and the crowds thinned. Then the 2008 and 2009 recession shifted the dining scene underneath them. The expansion and the bar that most people now think of as the restaurant were built during that stretch, which is to say Boneyard got bigger precisely when getting bigger was the riskiest thing to do.

What they actually did

The kitchen ran competition-style barbecue across five regional traditions at once: Southern, Texas, Kansas City, Carolina and Santa Maria. Hickory for the smoker, live red oak for the grill, a J&R pit doing the work. Brisket went more than ten hours.

The bistro half was the other argument. Executive chef Erica Abell ran a contemporary menu with global influences alongside the smoke, which is how a barbecue restaurant ended up serving Moroccan-spiced scallops and Korean-style mussels. Robins described the goal as bold flavors with elegant restraint, and the tell was small: upscale casual barbecue served on real china rather than butcher paper.

The beverage program, curated by general manager Rory Snipes, was arguably the most serious thing in the building. Forty-two craft taps, more than 100 bottled beers, over 100 bourbons and more than 70 zinfandels, which the restaurant fairly claimed put it among the largest whiskey and zinfandel lists in the country. There was an annual stout festival pouring more than twenty keg-aged varieties.

What to order before it closes

Brisket and the St. Louis ribs. Ten-plus hours over hickory, with the char and smoke ring that built the reputation.
The Monday double-dipped fried chicken. A buttermilk breading with its own following, and Monday is gone after this week.
The Wagyu burger. Half a pound, topped with St. Agur or Morbier, Nueske's applewood bacon and smoked onion aioli.
Kobe beef chili donuts and the Boneyard Bacon Building Blocks. The appetizers Robins has named as signatures.
Blackened catfish with jambalaya risotto. The clearest expression of the bistro half of the name.
The 420 Smoked burger. Ground brisket, onion jam, onion straws, Jack and cheddar, served only Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Fried mac and cheese, collard greens, and the maple and brown sugar bread pudding to close.
The Mega Platter, if you are bringing a crowd. Around $250 and built to feed ten, loaded with pulled pork, sausage, baby backs, St. Louis ribs, beef ribs, brisket and a whole red oak grilled chicken.

Beyond the restaurant

Robins opened a second Sherman Oaks restaurant, SOCA, down the street in March 2017, running a globally inspired steak and seafood menu. He has also been a fixture in local charity work, supporting the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank and Taste of the Rams, along with Operation BBQ Relief, Guy's Foundation, the Children's Burn Foundation, local schools and youth sports programs.

In February 2026, months before the announcement, the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association named Boneyard its Restaurant of the Month, citing Robins for supporting the community across two decades in business.

The goodbye

The restaurant built a tradition around the last Wednesday of every month: Louisiana seafood boils, chef's pairing dinners, regional barbecue tours, and an annual Cuban barbecue each September. That September tradition arrives the same month the restaurant closes.

Reaction has been heavy. WhatNow reported longtime customers and former staff filling the comments, including one who wrote that he worked there ten years, met his wife there, and would carry the place with him. Robins closed his announcement by telling followers to look forward to the next chapter, without saying what it is.

Going before it closes

Boneyard Bistro is at 13539 Ventura Boulevard, Sherman Oaks, CA 91423, at Woodman Avenue. Reach the restaurant at (818) 906-7427.

Final service: Saturday, September 12, 2026.
Reservations: the restaurant takes them, and on a closing weekend they are the difference between eating and not.
Parking: valet, street and a private lot.
Also offered: takeout and delivery, if no table is available.
Accessibility: wheelchair access, patio seating and a private room.

Robins was profiled during the run by Our Ventura Blvd.

FJM will update this post if the team announces what comes next.

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