The Lobster Shack from “Easy A”

Another location from fave movie Easy A that fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, informed me of while the Grim Cheaper and I were out and about doing some stalking in the Ojai area almost two years ago was the Carrows Restaurant that masqueraded as the Lobster Shack where Woodchuck Todd (Penn Badgley) worked in the flick.  So we drove right on over there shortly before heading home that afternoon.  And while the Carrows chain serves up some of the best chicken strips and ranch dressing that this stalker has ever sampled, unfortunately, because it was getting late and we had a long drive home ahead of us, we did not wind up eating on the premises that particular evening.

Even though we were not dining onsite, the staff at Carrows could NOT have been nicer and answered all of my silly little questions about the filming.  The hostess informed me that the Easy A shoot had taken place not in the main section of the restaurant, but in an auxiliary room that is only used during the eatery’s busiest hours.  And she was even nice enough to open up the room for us and turn on the lights so that I could snap some photographs of it.  LOVE it!

The Lobster Shack popped up only once in Easy A, in the scene in which Anson (Jake Sandvig) took Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) – in a clever twist, Penderghast is an anagram for “pretend shag” – out on a less-than-stellar first date.  Interestingly, according to a September 2010 Ojai Valley News Blog article, Easy A director Will Gluck, who is a long-time resident of the “Shangri-La of Southern California,” decided to film in the city he calls home “because I wanted the town to be one of my ‘characters’ in the script.  Ojai was the perfect place to capture this.  It’s also the most beautiful town in the world, and I tried to make it look as good as we all know it to be.”

As you can see below, Carrows Restaurant was dressed heavily with marine-themed décor and white twinkle lights for the shoot.

A lobster tank was even brought in and positioned on the front side of one of the restaurant’s real life planters for the scene.

In what turned out to be a massive stroke of good luck, while I did not have any Easy A screen captures on hand for reference, I somehow managed to pose for a picture in the exact same spot where Olive sat in the scene.  Why I chose that particular booth to pose, I will never know, but something in my memory clicked when I saw it and I had a hunch it was where filming had taken place.  For whatever reason, my brain holds onto the oddest filming factoids, but, hey, I’ll take it!

Olive’s booth is the second booth in from the back side of the room and is denoted with a pink arrow in the photographs below.

The Carrows parking lot also appeared in Easy A, although I accidentally took photographs from the opposite angle of what was shown onscreen.

As you can see below, all of the Carrows signage was swapped out for Lobster Shack signage during the shoot.  What I wouldn’t give to have been there to see all of that in person!

In the scene, Anson’s car was parked in the space denoted with a pink X in the aerial view pictured below.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.  And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Carrows Restaurant, aka the Lobster Shack from Easy A, is located at 211 West Ojai Avenue in Ojai.  Olive’s date scene was filmed in the restaurant’s auxiliary room, which is situated just to left (east) of the front entrance.

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