Cowboy Palace Saloon: Chatsworth Country Bar Since 1954

The Cowboy Palace Saloon, at 21635 Devonshire St in Chatsworth, has been pouring drinks and booking country bands since 1954, and it still feels like the San Fernando Valley before the subdivisions. Live country music plays Wednesday through Sunday nights, the cover is $5 on weeknights, and Friday and Saturday cost $10 with the dance lessons included. For anyone searching country bar near me anywhere in the West Valley, this is the honky-tonk with the longest résumé.

The building is older than the bar. A 2020 Patch profile says it went up in 1928 and opened in 1954 as a fine dining restaurant and country western music venue. In the late 1960s a stuntman named Bill Ryan owned it and called it Wild Bill's, and it later became Ryan's Roundup. Around the turn of the 1980s it was JR's Cowboy Palace, and it took its current name around 1985.

Singer and guitarist Chris Johnson bought the saloon in 2015, according to the same Patch piece, and he also runs a recording studio in North Hollywood, which helps explain the quality of the bands. When the pandemic shut the room on March 15, 2020, an hour and a half after a dance class ended, regulars raised money through a Save The Cowboy Palace Saloon campaign to keep it alive. The 2026 website shows it trading as usual.

The bar's website has a whole page titled Filmed at CPS, and the Patch profile notes that the room has served as a backdrop for hundreds of music videos and films, with country acts such as Keith Urban and Blake Shelton and a scene in Terminator among them. Location scouts like it for the same reason dancers do: wood paneling, a long bar and a stage that look exactly like a roadhouse should.

None of that makes it a tourist bar. Time Out described it as a place where real blue-jean cowboys roll up in their trucks for a beer and a little do-si-do, and the CSUN student paper, the Sundial, once called it a must-visit for college students, which is still a fair description of the weekend lesson crowd mixed in with older regulars who have danced here for decades.

The saloon has built its nights around line dancing for beginners. Time Out noted classes held before the big crowds arrive, and the bar has also mixed in other styles such as swing on some nights. The idea is simple: learn a dance early in the evening, then try it on the floor once the band starts, surrounded by people who have done the same steps for years.

The pricing reflects that order. On Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday the cover is $5 and does not include the lesson, or you can pay $10 for the lesson and skip the cover. On Friday and Saturday a single $10 charge covers both the lesson and the band. For a first visit, Friday is the better value, since the lesson is part of the price and the room is busiest.

The website promises live country music Wednesday through Sunday nights and says the bar likes to showcase some of the best talent on the Southern California country scene. These are working Southern California country bands rather than arena tours, and the floor is the measure of a good night: line dancers in rows during the radio hits, couples circling the outside during the two-steps and waltzes, and a scramble back to the bar when the set ends.

Between sets the action moves to the pool tables, which the website lists as a house feature. The bar is strictly 21 and over, so bring ID even if you are obviously older than that. There is no kitchen menu on the official site, so most regulars eat before they arrive or during happy hour.

Happy hour runs from 4pm to 6pm, and the bar opens at 4pm Wednesday through Saturday and at 3pm on Sunday, so an early arrival means cheaper drinks and an easy pick of seats. That timing matters because the saloon has a firm rule about groups.

The website says the bar no longer takes reservations for birthdays or other celebrations. Groups have to come in when the bar opens that day to hold tables, and someone has to stay on site for the tables to stay held. If you are planning a birthday on a Saturday, send the most patient friend at opening time with a book and let the rest arrive for the lesson. The bar also sells Cowboy Palace Saloon merch through an online store linked from its homepage, so a guest of honor can leave with a shirt from the place where the party happened.

Chatsworth sits at the northwest corner of the Valley, where the Santa Susana Mountains start, and the land around the saloon still has horse properties and boulder-strewn hills. Stoney Point Park, a sandstone outcrop famous with Los Angeles rock climbers, is a short drive away and makes a good late-afternoon hike before happy hour.

For dinner on the same street, Maru Sushi Bar and the Mexican restaurant Los Toros are both a short walk along Devonshire. The Chatsworth station, served by Metrolink and the Metro G Line busway, is the nearest transit stop, but most guests drive, and a designated driver or a rideshare home is the sensible plan after a night of two-stepping.

Address: The Cowboy Palace Saloon, 21635 Devonshire St, Chatsworth, CA 91311. Phone: 844-426-9725. Hours from the official site: opens Wednesday through Saturday at 4pm and Sunday at 3pm, closed Monday and Tuesday. Happy hour: 4pm to 6pm. Live country music: Wednesday through Sunday nights. Cover: $5 Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday without lessons, or $10 for lessons with no cover. Friday and Saturday $10 including lessons. Age: 21 and over. Groups: no reservations.