Blissful Drip Café from “Big Little Lies”

Big Little Lies producers sure like their fake coffee shops!  In the hit HBO series’ first season, Madeline Martha Mackenzie (Reese Witherspoon), Celeste Wright (Nicole Kidman) and Jane Chapman (Shailene Woodley) regularly hung out at Blue Blues, a supposed Old Fisherman’s Wharf restaurant that, as I mentioned here and here, was actually a studio-built set situated in front of a green screen.  This season, the trio frequents Blissful Drip Café, another faux spot that was installed, not on a soundstage, but on location at Lovers Point Park in Pacific Grove.  I learned about the prop coffee bar thanks to several articles written about its construction back in April 2018 (you can read one here and one here) and I, of course, made note of it.  So when my friend Nat headed out to Monterey a couple of weekends ago and asked if I needed anything stalked, Lovers Point Park was the first thing I mentioned!

Lovers Point Park and Beach is an area I am very familiar with.  Growing up in nearby San Francisco, Monterey was a favorite vacation spot for my family.  Countless hours were spent at the Pacific Grove retreat, namely at the snack bar overlooking the water where my dad and I would always order an extra helping of fries to feed the seagulls that would inevitably join us.

The bucolic 4.4-acre site, which regularly plays host to sunbathers, scuba divers, windsurfers, swimmers, bicyclists, runners, and fishermen, boasts a large beach surrounded by a rocky cove, a pier, a children’s swimming pool, a volleyball court, picnic areas, a restaurant, the aforementioned snack bar, and a large park situated on a grassy bluff fronting Monterey Bay.

It is the park area that serves as the home of Blissful Drip Café on Big Little Lies.  In the Season 2 premiere titled “What Have They Done?”, Madeline and Celeste pop by the funky seaside coffee shop (which per Madeline “smells like weed”) after dropping their kids off for their first day of school.

While there, Madeline runs into Mary Louise Wright (Meryl Streep), who curtly informs her that she finds “little people to be untrustworthy.”

Celeste and Jane also meet up at Blissful Drip in “Tell-Tale Hearts.”

In “The End of the World,” Jane and Mary Louise have coffee and discuss Perry (Alexander Skarsgård) there, though not much of the place can be seen.

And in “She Knows,” Celeste and Mary Louise have a tense tête-à-tête at Blissful Drip.

Though the café is charming and boasts stellar views, I can’t help but miss Blue Blues while watching – not to mention Tom (Joseph Cross), the eatery’s cutie owner who struck up a romance with Jane toward the end of Season 1.  Why Tom isn’t making an appearance this time around, I am unsure.  (Yes, I do know that Cross landed a leading role in the upcoming Netflix series Medal of Honor, but Iain Armitage, who plays Jane’s son, Ziggy Chapman, somehow made S2 of Big Little Lies work despite being the star of Young Sheldon and I feel Joseph could have done the same.)  I do have an answer for Blue Blues’ absence, though.  Per a Monterey County Now article, current director Andrea Arnold, who was brought on to replace Jean-Marc Vallée, wanted to showcase more outdoor locations than were featured in Season 1.  Blue Blues, therefore, was scrapped and replaced with Blissful Drip.  The fake café stood at Lovers Point Park for a total of 12 days (including installation and dismantling) and cost the production $44,077.50 in park use fees.  (You can check out a breakdown of those costs here and here.)  According to Monterey County Now, Madeline and the gang will be hanging out at the coffee bar throughout Season 2.  In fact, HBO donated the café set to Pacific Grove after filming wrapped with the understanding that the company would have access to it if the show gets picked up for a third season.  What the city will end up doing with it, I don’t know, but how cool would it be if it became a real coffee shop?

In reality, the area where Blissful Drip was installed (denoted with a pink arrow below) is nothing but an empty (albeit very picturesque) patch of grass.

The exact spot where the café was built is denoted in the aerial view below, with the pentagon representing the eatery’s gazebo and the attached rectangle its trellised patio.

The very same area of Lovers Point Park was featured in Big Little Lies’ Season 1 finale titled “You Get What You Need,” in the scene in which Jane tells Celeste that it is her son, Max (Nicholas Crovetti), who has been bullying Amabella Klein (Ivy George).

The spot where Blissful Drip was constructed (denoted with a pink arrow below) was visible behind Celeste in the segment.

As I detailed in my comprehensive list of locales from the series’ first season, Lovers Point Park and Beach popped up in additional episodes of Big Little Lies, as well.

Ed Mackenzie (Adam Scott) and Nathan Carlson (James Tupper) almost go to blows on the northern edge of Lovers Point Park, just due north of where Blissful Drip was built, in “Serious Mothering.”

Jane and Ziggy hang out at Lovers Point Beach in “Push Comes to Shove” . . .

. . . and in the area just south of the beach in “Living the Dream.”

Big THANK YOU to my friend Nat for stalking this location for me! 

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Lovers Point Park, where the Blissful Drip Café set was built for the second season of Big Little Lies, is located at 631 Ocean View Boulevard in Pacific Grove.

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