Play Pool, Eat Chicken, and Drink Beer and Burbank’s Crawford’s Pass

Farley Elliott is the Senior Editor at Eater LA and the author of Los Angeles Street Food: A History From Tamaleros to Taco Trucks. He covers restaurants in every form, from breaking news to the culture, people, and history that surrounds LA's dining landscape.

The Valley welcomes in a new bar this weekend, as Crawford’s expands into a familiar Burbank location. This is the former Sardo’s, a longtime karaoke haunt that has been reborn with red booths and lots of fried chicken.

Thankfully, owner Dustin Lancaster (Bar Covell, Chinatown’s new Oriel) and partners Matthew Dittmann, Dave Abrams, Michael Blackman have left some of the strip mall spot’s best attributes intact, from the backlighting reflecting out all the bottles on offer to the quirky, winding 14-seat bar. Brass railings, retro light fixtures, and a well-placed pool table complete the effect, while well-worn wooden tables and birch tree wallpaper accents round out the place in full.

Perhaps even more important than the new decor is the food and drink by chef Sean Martin. There’s a full liquor license here (as opposed to the Westlake original), but don’t expect $15 craft cocktails and lots of white jacketed bartenders; this is still a place for $3 Budweisers and fried chicken. In fact, the menu remains completely intact through the expansion, with the addition of a fried chicken sandwich. Crawford’s Burbank opens officially today, keeping evening hours only to start, from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. most nights, and on to 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. Expanded hours, including lunch, will come later.

Crawford’s Pass
259 N. Pass Ave.
Burbank, CA