Bean Town from “Big Little Lies”

Big Little Lies sure made use of Sierra Madre this season (in case you missed my other posts on the city’s BLL appearances, you can check them out here, here and here).  And it is not very hard to see why.  The San Gabriel Valley town, situated just east of Pasadena, is charming, picturesque and extremely evocative of the past.  It is like Pleasantville come to life!  The place is also very reminiscent of Carmel, where the show is set, though it is even more quaint than the Northern California hamlet if you can believe it.  And the hit HBO series utilized pretty much every square inch of it, including Bean Town, the beloved coffee house at 45 North Baldwin Avenue, which stood in for a pizza parlor, of all things, in episode 4.  Though I blogged about the café back in February 2009, due to its recent small screen cameo, I decided it was time for a redo.

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I learned about Bean Town’s appearance on Big Little Lies thanks to the employees at Mother Moo Creamery (situated just down the road at 17 Kersting Court), whom I spoke with while researching my article about locales from the series for the June issue of Los Angeles magazine.   They informed me that the coffee shop was altered significantly for the shoot and, boy oh boy, was it ever!  So much so that, even with the insider information, I had a heck of a time figuring out what was lensed on the premises.

It was not until I started scanning through the café’s Instagram feed that I figured things out.  During the March 2018 shoot, Bean Town’s owners graciously posted several photos of the space dressed for the filming.  The set of images showed the coffee shop decked out to look like an upscale Italian restaurant, with large pieces of art dotting the walls, autumn decorations splayed on tabletops, and garlic strands hanging from the ceiling.  One look and I knew immediately that Bean Town was the spot where Mary Louise Wright (Meryl Streep) took grandsons Josh (Cameron Crovetti) and Max (Nicholas Crovetti) for “the beeeeesssst pizza in the wooooooorld!” in “She Knows.”  Virtually none of the café is actually shown in the scene (which is surprising considering the energy apparently spent on decorating it).  What you see below is the extent of its appearance.

Despite the scant footage, though, enough was visible for me to be able to positively identify the place.  As you can see, the artwork, fall wreath and decorative plate positioned behind Mary Louise in the segment match the décor pictured in Bean Town’s Instagram photo of the café’s back wall perfectly.

In everyday life, that back wall looks considerably different.

Per Bean Town’s Instagram, the coffee shop was closed for a full four days for the shoot, from Tuesday, March 27th through Friday, March 30th, so it is fairly gobsmacking that its appearance amounted to exactly sixty seconds of screen time!  Typically, a scene of that length would require about a half a day of filming.  And while the set dressing was extensive . . .

. . . I just can’t imagine that it necessitated three and a half days of prep and strike time.

So where did all that extra time go?  My guess is that several additional segments were shot at the pizza parlor, but that they, like so much of Season 2, wound up on the cutting room floor.  Who knows for certain, but man, what I wouldn’t give to see director Andrea Arnold’s original cut!

The Big Little Lies shoot required Bean Town and the Starbucks down the block (the only two coffee shops in the area!) to be closed simultaneously (the horror!), so, in an amazing gesture, the former set up an outdoor kiosk and offered free java so the community would not be without!  The café, which was originally established in the ‘80s, actually has a long history of goodwill.  When a horrible wind storm hit the San Gabriel Valley in December 2011, owner Matt Krantz powered the eatery with three generators so that locals could still get their fix.  As he explained to the Patch, “We lost some signage, we lost a light and the awning tore up a bit but other than that, we’re here.  Bumps and bruises.  I could sit at home and not do anything, but I’d rather be here trying to keep everybody together and keep the sense of community that Sierra Madre is basically founded on.”  He also delivered coffee and baked goods to the city crews working to get the town back up and running.  And, in 2013, when a beloved barista unexpectedly passed away, Krantz not only shuttered the place for two full days to give friends and family a place to gather and mourn, but he also held a fundraiser on the premises to help with funeral costs.  Bean Town is a café with heart!  Oh, and their coffee is darn good, to boot!

As I mentioned in my 2009 post, Bean Town also appeared numerous times throughout the 2005 comedy Kicking and Screaming . . .

. . . most notably in the scene in which Phil Weston (Will Ferrell) has a minor breakdown over a too-long line.  (I’ve been there, Phil!  I’ve been there!)  You can check out the hilarious segment here.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: Bean Town, aka the pizza restaurant from the “She Knows” episode of Big Little Lies, is located at 45 North Baldwin Avenue in Sierra Madre.  You can visit the eatery’s official website here.  Several other spots from Season 2 can be found on the same block.  The Starbucks where Tori Bachman (Sarah Sokolovic) propositioned Ed Mackenzie (Adam Scott) in “The Bad Mother” and where Renata Klein (Laura Dern) lashed out at Mary Louise in “I Want to Know” is just down the road at 1 Kersting Court.  Mother Moo Creamery, where Madeline Martha Mackenzie (Reese Witherspoon) threw an ice cream cone at Mary Louise in a scene that was ultimately cut, is a few doors away at 17 Kersting Court.  Deasy Penner Podley, aka Madeline’s real estate office, is at 30 North Baldwin Avenue.   And the fictional Seaside Coffee Shop seen on Reese’s Instagram was created in the storefront that now houses Capelli Court Salon at 26 North Baldwin Avenue.