Shakers Family Restaurant from “Old School”

Today’s locale is another one of those facepalm spots.  For ages, I had been trying to track down the interior of the diner where Mitch (Owen Wilson) and the boys discussed saving their fraternity in the 2003 comedy Old School.  While I had long known that Montrose Bakery & Café (which, sadly, Yelp is reporting has closed) was used as the exterior of the restaurant, the café that portrayed the interior remained a mystery.  Then while watching the flick recently, I spotted something that I thought I recognized.

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Visible outside of the window behind Mitch in the restaurant scene was a red brick building that looked extremely familiar to me.

Upon scrutinizing the scene further, I spotted a Kentucky Fried Chicken outpost located across the street from the restaurant and it was then that everything clicked into place.  I knew immediately that filming had occurred at Shakers Family Restaurant in South Pasadena.  I used to get my nails done at a salon just south of Shakers and, though I had never eaten there, I passed by it, as well as the red brick building and the KFC (which is now Mamma’s Brick Oven Pizza and Pasta), on a regular basis, which is why they looked so familiar to me.

As soon as I figured out that filming had taken place at Shakers, I started doing some research on the eatery and its filming history and came across this mention of Old School being shot on the premises on the Scott’s L.A. Audio Tours website.  Now, not only have I been to that website several times over the years, but I own and have listened to (several times, I might add!) the Scott’s L.A. Pasadena Audio Tour CD!  D’oh!  Feeling a bit sheepish, I immediately added the diner to my To-Stalk List and ran right on over there a couple of weeks later.

The Googie-style building that houses Shakers was originally built in 1965 for the Preble’s Restaurant and Coffee Shop chain.  It was designed by the famed Armet & Davis architecture firm, who also gave us Norm’s La Cienega.  You can see an advertisement for Preble’s here and you can check out what a few other restaurants built for the chain look like today here.

In 1971, the South Pasadena Preble’s changed hands and was turned into the Salt Shaker.  Just a few years later, in 1975, the owners dropped “salt” from the name (according to Wikia, the change was made due to the many studies being released at the time that showed salt was unhealthy) and the eatery became known simply as “Shakers” or “Shakers Family Restaurant.”  Though the interior has been remodeled slightly in recent years, it still boasts much of the same décor that it did when the Salt Shaker was originally established 45 years ago.

I cannot believe that in all the years I lived in Pasadena, I never dined at Shakers!  The Grim Cheaper and I thoroughly enjoyed our lunch there, though I am really regretting not opting to order the chicken strips, which countless Yelp reviewers have touted as being the best they’ve ever had.  That’s what I get for trying to be healthy!  I cannot say enough good things about the Classical Cobb Salad that I did order, though.  It was fabulous!

Thanks to the place’s fabulously retro aesthetic, it has long been a favorite of location managers.

In Old School, Mitch and his Alpha Epsilon Omega brothers discussed the Charter Certification Review of their fraternity while sitting in Shakers’ southern dining room.

As I mentioned earlier, only the interior of Shakers was featured in Old School.  The exterior shown in the movie can be found at 2325 Honolulu Avenue in Montrose.

I was floored to learn via various websites and Yelp reviews that an episode of The X-Files had been lensed at Shakers.  I was unsure of which episode, though, and while it took quite a bit of time, I finally managed to figure it out!  Shakers was the spot where Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) told Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) the legend of the Lazarus Bowl in Season 7’s “Hollywood A.D.,” which aired in 2000 and was written and directed by Duchovny.

As I mentioned in my recent post about Beeman Park from Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Shakers masked as The Burger Hole in the 2008 comedy Role Models.  The eatery popped up twice in the film and both the exterior . . .

. . . and interior were utilized.

In the Season 2 episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. titled “One of Us,” which aired in 2015, Calvin Zabo (Kyle MacLachlan) and the rest of the “Masters of Evil” dine at Shakers and discuss how to take down the Agents.

I immediately recognized the diner when it popped up in the recently-aired episode of Scandal titled “Wild Card” as the spot where Tom Larsen (Brian Letscher) convinced Wayne Turner (Braden Lynch) to hold up the Pennsylvania State Capital.

The exterior of Shakers also appeared in the episode.

The eatery was apparently featured in All Night Long, as well, but I could not find a copy of the 1981 comedy to verify that information.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: Shakers Family Restaurant, from Old School, is located at 601 Fair Oaks Avenue in South Pasadena.  You can visit the diner’s official website here.