Category: Movie Locations

Hal’s Bar & Grill from “13 Going on 30”

Last week, while shopping in Venice Beach with my girls Lavonna, Kim, Katie and Kaylee, we made a brief stalking stop at Hal’s Bar & Grill, which appeared in one of my favorite movies of all time, 13 Going on 30. During our visit, we happened to have the good fortune to speak with Don Novack, one of Hal’s owners (that thick Southern accent of Lavonna’s worked for us once again!), and I just about fell over when he informed us that the eatery had appeared in Single White Female in 1992! So even though I’ve already blogged about the place once before, I decided Hal’s was most definitely worthy of a redux.

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Don’s foray into the restaurant world was a circuitous one. While working as a real estate broker in 1985, he unwittingly found himself part-owner of a sandwich shack/antique shop named Merchant of Venice after a business deal fell through. Don remained a silent partner for two years, until he learned that the eatery was facing certain financial failure. He decided to take over operations of the place at that point and brought in his wife, Linda, to help. He also partnered up with Hal Frederick, a fellow real estate broker, whom he had just recently met. The group remodeled the space into an upscale venue, gave the menu a full revamp and renamed the site “Hal’s Bar & Grill.” The property opened its doors to the public in 1987 and very little of it has been changed since.

Hal’s became an immediate success, despite the fact that the neighborhood was rough (to say the least) at the time. Abbot Kinney Boulevard has since experienced a major revitalization and patrons continue to flock to Hal’s, 27 years after its inception. The eatery is also a major celebrity hot spot. Just a few of the stars who have been spotted dining there include Jessica Simpson, Eric Johnson, Robert Downey Jr., Mike Tyson, Lindsay Lohan, Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer, Sammy Davis Jr., Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Tom Hanks, Kobe Bryant, Julia Roberts, Julianne Nicholson, Dermot Mulroney, Ewan McGregor, Reese Witherspoon, Rachel McAdams and Josh Lucas.

In the 1992 thriller Single White Female, Hal’s stood in for the supposed New York restaurant where Allison Jones (Bridget Fonda) made a deal to sell her computer program to Mitchell Myerson (Stephen Tobolowsky).

Surprisingly, although 22 years have since passed, the eatery still looks much the same today as it did onscreen in Single White Female. LOVE that!

In 2004’s 13 Going on 30, Hal’s masqueraded as the New York City bar where Jenna Rink (Jennifer Garner) hit on a teenage boy. Only the interior of Hal’s appeared in the movie.

The exterior of the restaurant can actually be found about 3,000 miles away in New York’s SoHo neighborhood. You can read the post I wrote on the exterior here.

Don also informed us that Hal’s had appeared in two episodes of Californication. Because I am not very familiar with the Showtime series, I asked fellow stalker Geoff, of the 90210Locations website, if he happened to know which two episodes had been lensed on the premises. Sure enough, he did. Thank you, Geoff! In 2007, Hal’s was the site of the very bad double date between Hank Moody (David Duchovny) and Meredith (Amy Price-Francis) and Charlie (Evan Handler) and Marcy Runkle (Pamela Adlon) in Californication’s pilot episode.

Hal’s also popped up this year in the Season 7 episode of Californication titled “Faith, Hope, Love,” in a flashback scene in which Hank remembers going on another double date, this time with his ex-wife, Karen (Natascha McElhone), and Charlie and Marcy. Several areas of the eatery appeared in the episode, including the exterior;

the front entrance and bar;

and main dining room.

Don told us that Hal’s was featured in an episode of another show that I am unfamiliar with, Curb Your Enthusiasm. So I enlisted the help of fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, to figure out which episode and, thankfully, he came through. Hal’s stood in for Primo Trattoria in Season 6’s “The TiVo Guy,” which aired in 2007. In the episode, Larry David (who plays himself) gets snubbed by his favorite restaurant after his wife, Cheryl David (Cheryl Hines), leaves him. Both the interior . . .

. . . and the exterior of Hal’s (which I somehow failed to get any photographs of) were shown several times throughout “The TiVo Guy.”

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Hal’s Bar & Grill, from 13 Going On 30, is located at 1349 Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice Beach. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

June 20, 2014
Chez Jay from “A Single Man”

The April issue of Los Angeles magazine (for which I wrote my very first print article ever – you can read it here) featured a Time Frame image of one of Santa Monica’s most historic restaurants, Chez Jay, reminding me that while I had stalked the watering hole ages ago, I had yet to blog about it. So here goes!

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Chez Jay was originally founded by a Connecticut-born struggling actor named Jay Fiondella. During the 1950s, Jay was working as a bartender at Sinbad’s on the Santa Monica Pier and, before his shifts, he would often grab a bite to eat at a nearby coffee shop named Dawn’s Cafe. He learned through his regular visits that Dawn’s was struggling financially and one fateful day the owner offered to sell the place to him for the bargain price of $1. Fiondella laid down the bill and the eatery became his. He named the place “Chez Jay,” in honor of Chez Joey, the restaurant owned by Frank Sinatra in the 1957 movie Pal Joey. (In a fateful twist, Sinatra would later become a Chez Jay regular.) The new eatery opened for business on July 4th, 1959. For the grand opening fete, Jay brought in showgirls and an elephant. Yes, an elephant! (You can see a photograph of it here.) Legend has it that the animal slammed its trunk on the bar at one point in the evening, denting it, and that that dent it still visible to this day.

The tiny space, which boasts a scant 10 tables, 12 bar stools and a 150-square-foot kitchen, quickly became popular with everyone from locals to the Hollywood set. Just a few of the luminaries who have dined there over the years include Ava Gardner, Vivien Leigh, Peter Sellers, Angie Dickinson, Chris Penn, Bronson Pinchot, Warren Beatty, Hugh Hefner, Robert Mitchum, my girl Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio, Marlon Brando, Judy Garland, Cary Grant, Jim Morrison, Michael Caine, Fred Astaire, John Belushi, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood, Dennis Hopper, Steve McQueen, Natalie Wood, Henry Kissinger, Leonard Nimoy, Cher, Viggo Mortensen, Renee Zellweger, Kiefer Sutherland, Mick Jagger, Tony Bennett, Joan Baez, Lee Marvin (legend has it that he once rode his motorcycle right up to the bar and ordered a drink), Julia Roberts, Sean Penn, Quentin Tarantino, Drew Barrymore, and Kevin Bacon. Frank Sinatra and other members of the Rat Pack would dine there weekly before their regular poker game. David E. Kelley and Michelle Pfeiffer even met there for the first time during a dinner party. And Matt Damon and Ben Affleck worked on their Oscar-winning screenplay for Good Will Hunting in the establishment’s back room. Not too shabby of a clientele!

Legend has it that Chez Jay was also the inspiration for the Regal Beagle, local Santa Monica hangout of Jack Tripper (John Ritter) and the gang, on Three’s Company.

Jay Fiondella passed away in 2008 at the age of 82 and the iconic restaurant is now run by his son, Chaz, daughter, Anita, and longtime business partner, Michael Anderson. The eatery’s future became uncertain shortly after Jay’s death when the City of Santa Monica began demolishing an adjoining parking lot to build what is now Tongva Park. During construction, city officials decided that Chez Jay did not fit in with their vision and hoped to demolish the place to make room for an open-air, family-friendly establishment. Thankfully, preservationists stepped in and the historic watering hole was given landmark status in late 2012. Chez Jay’s future is still somewhat uncertain, though, as the restaurant may be forced to undergo a remodel or an add-on. You can read a more in-depth history of the site here and here.

Despite having stalked Chez Jay on more than one occasion, the Grim Cheaper and I have never actually eaten there. It’s not for lack of trying, though. The place is always packed to the gills and typically doesn’t even have any standing-room-only space.

Thanks largely to the fact that little of Chez Jay has been changed over its 55-year history, the place has been featured onscreen several times. In the 1990 film Bad Influence, the restaurant was where Alex (Rob Lowe) took Michael Boll (James Spader) for a beer shortly after meeting him.

The interior of Chez Jay was also shown briefly in the scene.

In the 2009 drama A Single Man, Chez Jay popped up twice as The Starboard Side bar. It first appeared in the flashback scene in which George (Colin Firth) remembered first meeting his longtime boyfriend, Jim (The Good Wife’s Matthew Goode).

While the interior of the bar was also used briefly in the scene, not much of it was visible. The large amount of people shown packed inside it is a pretty accurate depiction of what the place is like in real life, though.

In a later scene, George runs into a student named Kenny (Nicholas Hoult) while at Chez Jay and the two have drinks.

The interior is shown in that scene, as well.

Chez Jay is also where Mark Callan (Wilson Bethel) meets with one of his father’s cronies in the Season 1 episode of All Rise titled “What the Constitution Greens to Me.”

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Chez Jay, from Bad Influence, is located at 1657 Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

June 2, 2014
The Warehouse Restaurant from “Anger Management”

While visiting L.A. last week, the Grim Cheaper and I stayed in Marina del Rey. One late afternoon, during a waterfront stroll, we found ourselves passing by a unique eatery that had long been on my To-Stalk List. Situated on the bustling Admiralty Way amongst upscale hotels and high-rise apartment buildings, the nautical-themed The Warehouse Restaurant is almost hidden from view. I first spotted the place years ago on another oceanside walk with the GC and was instantly intrigued as I had never before seen anything like it! The structure looks like a ramshackle beach hut, complete with a large man-made lagoon out front. My first thought was ‘This place has to have been in movies!’ During that particular visit, The Warehouse was, sadly, closed so I was not able to venture inside to inquire further. This time, though, we passed by just as the clock was reaching cocktail hour and I convinced the GC to pop in for some drinks.

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The Warehouse Restaurant was originally founded way back in 1969 by award-winning cameraman Burt Hixson. To decorate his eatery, Burt salvaged authentic nautical equipment from old San Pedro shipyards. The result is quite spectacular and utterly one-of-a-kind.

Actual wharf posts, boats, fishing nets and buoys flank the exterior.

The lagoon even boasts a large pier jutting out into its middle.

The interior is comprised of whiskey barrels, crates suspended from the ceiling, wooden oars and hanging lanterns.

The place feels like Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride come to life.

The establishment also boasts some pretty fantastic waterfront views.

The GC and I ate in the bar, which just so happens to be the area of the restaurant most often utilized in filming. But more on that later.

Thanks to its fabulous fare and kitschy aesthetic, The Warehouse Restaurant was a hit from the get-go. According to a Beaver County Times article, in 1973 it was the nation’s most successful restaurant. The eatery has also, of course, attracted its fair share of celebrities and has walls upon walls of photos of stars posing with Warehouse menus to prove it.

Just a few of the celebs pictured include Kirk Cameron;

a very young Michael Douglas;

‘N Sync boy-banders Justin Timberlake, Lance Bass, JC Chasez and Chris Kirkpatrick;

and Cary Grant (at least I’m pretty sure that’s Cary Grant).

We even spotted a celebrity during our visit there – Two Broke Girls’ Garrett Morris, who was nice enough to pose for a picture with me. (Too bad it turned out a bit blurry.)

In the mid-80s, after opening several successful sister restaurants, Burt decided to establish a boutique hotel in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and sold off his popular eateries. Today, The Warehouse Restaurant is owned by Lee and Martha Spencer, who also own another of my favorite Los Angeles hot spots – the Smoke House in Burbank, which I blogged about here.

Thanks to its unique tropical look, The Warehouse Restaurant has been immortalized onscreen several times over the years. In the 2003 comedy Anger Management, the site masqueraded as the Boston eatery where Dr. Buddy Rydell (Jack Nicholson) forced Dave Buznik (Adam Sandler) to hit on a random girl named Kendra (Heather Graham).

The following year, the eatery popped up in Meet the Fockers as the Miami, Florida restaurant where Bernie and Rozalin Focker (Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand, respectively) hosted an engagement party for their son, Greg Focker (Ben Stiller), and his fiancé, Pam Byrnes (Teri Polo).

The exterior of The Warehouse Restaurant was also shown briefly in the film.

In 2013, The Warehouse cameoed as the crab shack where the maritime law trial of Lucille Bluth (Jessica Walter) took place on Season 4 of Arrested Development.

The restaurant’s entrance was shown during the trial, as well.

The Warehouse also served as Bliss Point, the supposed Dana Point eatery where Jen Harding (Christina Applegate) and Judy Hale (Linda Cardellini) confront Jen’s dead husband’s mistress, Bambi (Olivia Macklin), in the Season 1 episode of Dead to Me titled “I Can’t Go Back.”

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Warehouse Restaurant, from Anger Management, is located at 4499 Admiralty Way in Marina del Rey. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

May 13, 2014
The Disneyland Locations from “Saving Mr. Banks”

In February (on what turned out to be an exorbitantly crowded day), the Grim Cheaper and I visited The Happiest Place on Earth with Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, and her husband, Keith Coogan. Since I had just recently watched – and fallen in love with – Saving Mr. Banks, I decided to do a little stalking of the Disneyland locales that appeared in the flick while I was there.

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In Saving Mr. Banks, which chronicles the making of the 1964 film Mary Poppins, Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) takes P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) to Disneyland for the day in the hopes that the trip will soften the prickly author and make her more a bit more agreeable to work with. When P.L. arrives at the park, she is driven right through the main gates and up to the the back side of Disneyland Railroad’s Main Street Train Station, where Walt is waiting for her.

The Main Street Train Station and Disneyland Railroad are both original attractions, opened the same day that the park was on July 17th, 1955. The Victorian-style station is one of four located throughout the property and is serviced by five different trains. The locomotives, which run on bio-diesel fuel, are all historically accurate in their design, with one, the C.K. Holiday train, boasting a special caboose named the Lilly Belle. The Belle, which was originally part of the now-retired Retlaw 1 train, was redesigned with luxurious appointments in 1974 in order to act as a special passenger car for VIPs. You can check out some photographs of it here. The car is still in operation to this day and is open to the public, pending availability. If you would like to ride the Lilly Belle, inquire at the front desk of the Main Street Railroad Station as soon as the park opens and, if it is running that day and is available, you and your party will be given a scheduled ride time. Passengers are even given special train tickets to commemorate the experience. (There are rumors floating around the internet that the public is no longer allowed on the Belle. While this website claims the rumors have been confirmed, I am not sure if that is accurate.)

While outside the Main Street Train Station, Walt is shown jovially greeting admirers and handing out pre-signed autographs, which never ceases to crack me up as your chances of catching Tom Hanks happily interacting with fans are slim to none. The guy’s a great actor, but not AT ALL friendly – in fact he was downright mean to me when I met him a few years back. He was also deemed one of The Top Ten Worst Autograph Signers of 2013 by Mike the Fanboy – and rightly so. You can read Mike’s write-up here.

Walt and P.L. then make their way down Main Street, U.S.A. Mid-walk, Walt gazes up longingly at a window that bears his father’s name.

That window, located above the Emporium (Disneyland’s largest gift shop), is, too, a park original and has been there since opening day. It reads “Elias Disney, Contractor, Est. 1895.” Elias held a number of different jobs throughout his lifetime, including mail carrier, orange farmer and railroad crewman. He also did some work contracting houses in Chicago and it is believed that he might have started his own contracting business in 1895, hence the year listed on the window.

Walt then manages to get P.L. on a ride – the King Arthur Carrousel – although she does so very begrudgingly.

The King Arthur Carrousel (which utilizes a British spelling) is also a Disneyland Opening Day attraction and has been in operation since 1955. (It was in fact a carousel, the one at Griffith Park, that inspired Walt to create Disneyland in the first place.) The merry-go-round was originally built in 1922 and, prior to its relocation to The Happiest Place on Earth, had been a part of Sunnyside Beach Park in Toronto, Canada. Walt had the ride enlarged and remodeled before it made its Disney debut. The carousel features 68 hand-carved wooden horses (each has a name – supposedly, you were once able to stop by Disneyland City Hall and pick up a list of those names), one chariot and 3,328 sparkling bulb lights. Jingles, the horse that P.L. rides in Saving Mr. Banks, is one of the attraction’s actual steeds and its most ornately-decorated. In an ironic twist, on April 8th, 2008, as part of the park’s 50th anniversary celebration, Jingles was dedicated to none other than Mary Poppins herself, actress Julie Andrews.

The Disneyland locations can be seen briefly in the Saving Mr. Banks trailer, which you can watch by clicking below.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Disneyland Resort is located at 1313 Disneyland Drive in Anaheim. You can visit the park’s official website here. The areas used in Saving Mr. Banks include the rear side of the Main Street Train Station, just beyond the park’s front entrance; the Elias Disney window, which can be found on the west side of Main Street, on the second floor of the Emporium, next to and just south of the Crystal Arcade storefront; and the King Arthur Carrousel, which is in Fantasyland, just north of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle.

April 18, 2014
Kim’s New House from “L!fe Happens”

Once I had tracked down the main house used in L!fe Happens (you can read that post here), as well as Auntie Em’s Kitchen, which also appeared in the flick (you can read that post here), I became more than a little obsessed with finding the cottage that Kim (Krysten Ritter) rented towards the end of the 2011 rom-com. Ironically enough, I didn’t even like L!fe Happens all that much, but it was filmed in L.A. and knowing that there are undiscovered SoCal locations out there just waiting to be unearthed is like kryptonite to this stalker. So, once again, I found myself on the hunt.

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The bungalow only appears in a few brief scenes near the end of L!fe Happens, after (spoiler alert!) Kim decides to move out of the residence she formerly shared with her BFFs Deena (Kate Bosworth) and Laura (Rachel Bilson) and into her her own place.

While Kim is out house-hunting, she is shown driving on a street that – thanks to its broadness, position at the base of a group of mountains and fact that it dead-ends into another road – I figured was most likely located in Eagle Rock.

I was also fairly certain that the street sign that Kim passed in the scene said “Las Flores.”

I also noticed an address number that I believed to be “5120” painted on the curb in front of Kim’s new house. So I started searching all of the 5100 blocks of streets running perpendicular to Las Flores Drive in Eagle Rock. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before I found the right place. As it turns out, the address number is actually “5129,” not “5120.” And they say close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades!

In real life, the picturesque 1911 cottage features three bedrooms, 1 bath, 1,694 square feet, and a 0.17-acre plot of land. It last sold in June 2012 for $565,000.

The home’s actual interior was also used in the filming, as you can see in the screen capture/MLS photograph-comparisons pictured below.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Kim’s new house from L!fe Happens is located at 5129 Windermere Avenue in Eagle Rock.

April 16, 2014
Azul Tapas Lounge from “Hidden Away”

Last February, a film crew descended upon Palm Springs for 12 days to shoot the Lifetime Original Movie Hidden Away. Sadly, I never got to witness any of the filming, but I read numerous newspaper articles about the production and stalked a few of the locations mentioned, including Azul Tapas Lounge. Because we do not get the Lifetime channel, I was not able to watch the thriller (and I use that word loosely) until recently after it became available for download on iTunes. Regrettably, I can’t say that Hidden Away was any good. It was a bit painful to watch, truth be told. Film critic Jackie K. Cooper had this to say in his review of the flick for the Huffington Post, “What do you do when it is Saturday night and there is no Sharknado on to scoff at? Well you find something almost as idiotic and that is the Lifetime Original Movie Hidden Away. Yes, this is a movie so ridiculous that it will make you laugh in spite of yourself.” That’s a pretty spot-on analysis. I did absolutely LOVE seeing my new hometown onscreen, though, and figured its locations were still blog-worthy, regardless.

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Azul Tapas Lounge, one of downtown Palm Spring’s most popular restaurants, is located inside of the General Telephone Building, which was originally constructed for the California Water & Telephone company in 1934. The two-story Spanish Eclectic structure, which is a designated Palm Springs Historical Site, operated as a telephone switching center until 1984. Today, both floors comprise Azul, a tapas restaurant that also serves American fare such as burgers, wraps and pizza. There are even six different grilled cheese sandwich selections on the menu, as well as a build-your-own grilled cheese option with over forty different add-ons (think poblano peppers, basil pesto, and bacon) ! Um, count me in!

Azul’s crowning element, though, is its humongous outdoor patio, which is centered around a large bar and features glider-booths, aka covered, bench-style swings (LOVE!).

Azul has become something of a celebrity hot spot – well, for Palm Springs, anyway. Bo Derek, Cloris Leachman and Jane Russell have all dined there in the past and, according to Fab Magazine, Carol Channing even threw her 90th birthday party at the eatery. Hidden Away’s unit production manager Brian Nolan is also a fan of the restaurant, having hung out there during various trips to the desert, which is how it came to be used in the movie. In a 2013 Palm Springs Life article, Nolan is quoted as saying,, “I knew for this movie we needed a location like this and we needed a cool restaurant, cool patio, coffee kind of scenario. I called George [Kessinger, Azul’s owner] and he was completely open to it and very excited to have us.”

Azul was used three times, as three different restaurants, in Hidden Away. The interior first popped up as the fictional Blasini’s, in the scene in which Brett (Sean Patrick Flanery) proposed to his girlfriend, Alexandra (Emmanuelle Vaugier). Unbeknownst to Brett is the fact that Alexandra is actually named Stephanie and that she faked her death, as well as the death of her daughter, Rachel (Allie Gonino), ten years prior in order to escape her abusive husband, Andrew (Ivan Sergei).

Azul’s interior was dressed with twinkle lights and large bamboo plants for the shoot and, in person, looks quite a bit different than it did onscreen.

For the exterior of Blasini’s, producers used an establishing shot of LG’s Prime Steakhouse, located at 255 South Palm Canyon Drive. Unfortunately, I do not have any photographs of LG’s, so please excuse the Google Street View image below.

The exterior of Azul was used for some filming, as well. It popped up as the outside of the upscale eatery where Andrew first confronted Stephanie/Alexandra after tracking her down in Palm Springs.

Interior filming for that scene took place at Tinto restaurant, which is located inside of The Saguaro Palm Springs Hotel. Confused yet? There’s more. The exterior of The Saguaro appeared in Hidden Away, as well. I’ll save that information for a future post, though.

Azul’s patio area later masqueraded as a coffee shop towards the end of Hidden Away, in the scene in which Alexandra told her best friend, Lynn (Law & Order’s Elisabeth Rohm), that she had faked her death and that her abusive ex-husband was now stalking her. Andrew is not-surprisingly watching the two women from across the street, while playing with a cigarette lighter and contemplating how to do away with Lynn. Like I said, it’s not a great movie. Unless you’re familiar with Palm Springs and want to see the city onscreen, I definitely wouldn’t recommend it.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Azul Tapas Lounge, from Hidden Away, is located at 369 North Palm Canyon Drive in downtown Palm Springs.

April 11, 2014
Opera on Ocean from “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead”

A couple of weeks ago, a fellow stalker named Gina reminded me of a Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead location that I had yet to blog about – Opera on Ocean, the Santa Monica restaurant where slime-ball Gus (John Getz) took Sue Ellen Crandell (Christina Applegate) for a lunch date in the 1991 flick. I had tracked the eatery down a while back, but because it had been shuttered years prior, I never ventured out to stalk it. Then, when I was in Santa Monica last week, I randomly found myself in front of the building that once housed it and figured now was as good a time as any to do a post on the place.

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Opera on Ocean, which was originally called simply “Opera,” was opened on the ground floor of Santa Monica’s Paseo del Mar building in March 1988 by restaurateurs Jerry Singer and Doug Delfeld and real estate developer Gary Fowler. Despite the musically-influenced name, no singing was done on the premises. According to a Los Angeles Times article published the year the eatery was founded, the moniker was “a metaphor for all these different things coming together.” The 130-seat space, which included an enclosed patio and an on-site take-out bakery, was designed in a Mediterranean style by Ruben Ojeda. Sadly, Opera, which served a mix of Spanish, Italian and Moroccan fare, never took off and was soon in dire financial straits. In 1989, the restaurant was taken over by new owners, who changed the name to “Opera on Ocean.” The chef, menu and décor were also altered, but it didn’t make a difference on the bottom line and the establishment was shuttered in November 1990.

The space was then remodeled and an outpost of the Il Fornaio chain opened there in 1995. After over 17 years in operation, it, too, eventually closed in late November 2012. Eight months later, a Del Frisco’s Grille opened at the site, following another major remodel/gutting of the interior and patio area. The property looks quite a bit different today than it did in 1990 when Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead was filmed.

In Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, Gus takes Sue Ellen out for a welcome lunch at Opera shortly after she starts working at General Apparel West. During the meal, “Swell” orders a Martini & Rossi on the rocks and the server asks if she wants it sweet or dry, to which she responds, “Um, oh, just a little bit of both.” The exterior of Opera (as well as its signage) was shown in the scene and, thanks to Paseo del Mar’s beautiful architecture and prominent location directly across from the Santa Monica Pier, I recognized the building immediately during a re-watch of the flick back in 2009. (At the time, I was in a bit of a Don’t-Tell-Mom-filming-locations-track-down obsession, having just found the Crandell house and Clown Dog from the movie.)

Because the space has been extensively remodeled twice since filming took place there back in 1990 and I can find no photographs of how it previously looked online, at first I was unsure if Opera’s actual interior had appeared in the lunch scene or if a different restaurant had been used.

But then I spotted the word “Opera” on Sue Ellen’s menu in the scene, so the eatery’s interior did, in fact, appear in the film.

As you can see in the images below and in this online tour of the former Il Fornaio space, after the first remodel the restaurant became absolutely unrecognizable from Don’t Tell Mom.

The Del Frisco’s redesign (photographs of which I got off the restaurant’s website) made the place even more unrecognizable. Talk about a change!

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Del Frisco’s Grille, aka the former Opera on Ocean restaurant from Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, is located at 1551 Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. You can visit Del Frisco’s official website here.

April 8, 2014
Auntie Em’s Kitchen from “L!fe Happens”

I recently re-watched the 2011 romantic comedy L!fe Happens and I have to say that I enjoyed it much more the second time around. One of the locations featured in it – Auntie Em’s Kitchen in Eagle Rock – I had actually recognized during my first viewing. I used to drive by the place frequently when I lived in Pasadena, but, despite hearing rave reviews, never dropped in. So I decided that it was high time I did so and headed on over there a couple of weeks ago for lunch.

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Auntie Em’s owner, Theresa Wahl, was led to the food world in a rather circuitous way. The former lead singer and guitarist for the all-female punk bank The Red Aunts, Theresa spent the better part of the ‘90s touring the U.S. and Europe. During her travels, she discovered countless new recipes, as well as some modern twists on old favorites. Upon returning to L.A., Wahl decided to put what she had learned to good use. She retired from singing and focused her efforts on the culinary arts, opening up a catering company specializing in good old American comfort food. Thanks to her music connections, she quickly landed jobs providing fare for bands and on music video and production sets. Just a few of the famous names that Theresa has fed over the years include Jennifer Lopez, Christina Aguilera, Mariah Carey, Britney Spears, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rihanna, Brandy, Sheryl Crow, Carmen Electra, Dr. Phil, Lionel Richie, Alec Baldwin, Elton John, Ellen DeGeneres, and Cindy Crawford. She even provided the catering for Rose McGowan’s October 2013 wedding to Davey Detail.

In 2002, Theresa founded Auntie Em’s Kitchen, named in honor of the Auntie Em character from The Wizard of Oz. Um, love it! The place was an instant success and led to appearances for Theresa on the Food Network’s Throwdown with Bobby Flay and Sugar High.

Auntie Em’s cheerful interior décor (which I somehow did not take any photographs of) is reminiscent of Monica and Rachel’s apartment on Friends – a bright mish-mash of colors and styles that merge together perfectly to create a warm, welcoming space. The eatery also features a bakery (which, being diabetic, I, unfortunately, could not partake of) and a marketplace that sells gourmet foods and unique trinkets. The place is pretty much the restaurant version of my favorite store, Lula Mae. Of the fare, Wahl said in a January 2013 USA Today article, “We’re cooking up comfort food with attitude. It’s just like Mom would make, if Mom had been a punk rocker with a baking habit. These are recipes that make me happy, and I love sharing them.” All ingredients are fresh – she says, “If it can’t be found at the farmers’ market, it won’t be found on your plate” – and almost everything served is homemade on the premises. What isn’t, is obtained from such high-regarded spots as La Brea Bakery and Strauss Family Creamery. I opted for the Artisanal Cheese Plate for my lunch and it was fabulous!

In L!fe Happens, Auntie Em’s Kitchen is where Deena (Kate Bosworth) writes her book and where she allows Henri (Justin Kirk) to hang out with her, as long as he adheres to her conditions – “no talking, no touching, no disturbing my work flow.” Only the exterior of the restaurant was used in the filming and, as you can see below, two large foliage pieces were installed at either end of the property during the shoot, most likely to block the view of the prying lenses of the paparazzi.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Auntie Em’s Kitchen, from L!fe Happens, is located at 4616 Eagle Rock Boulevard in Eagle Rock. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

April 1, 2014
The “L!fe Happens” House

While getting my hair blown out at the Pasadena Blo-Out Lounge (one of my very favorite places) a couple of weeks ago, I caught a portion of the 2011 romantic comedy L!fe Happens, which I had never previously heard of. Thanks to its obvious L.A. locales, the flick piqued my interest. A rom-com filmed in Los Angeles that I didn’t know about? How is that possible? I quickly amended the situation by forcing the Grim Cheaper to watch it on Netflix a few nights later. And while I didn’t particularly love the movie, I did fall into a bit of lust with the unique Craftsman-style home where BFFs Kim (Krysten Ritter), Deena (Kate Bosworth) and Laura (Rachel Bilson) lived in it. Having Geoff Stults in a starring role didn’t hurt, either. This stalker absolutely loves herself some GS! But I’m getting off track.

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The residence took quite a bit of sleuthing to track down. While I originally thought that it was most likely located in Echo Park or Silver Lake, after a lot of digging I ended up finding it just off the I-10 freeway near Western Avenue in the Pico-Union area of Los Angeles.

In real life, the home, which was originally built in 1905, boasts four bedrooms, two baths, 2,263 square feet of living space, and a 0.13-acre plot of land. According to Zillow, it last sold in April 1999 for $150,000, which seems quite a bit low to me. Maybe it was in very poor shape at the time, though. It also appears to be undergoing some sort of renovation currently, as well.

L!fe Happens centers around three friends who live together in what is supposedly Silver Lake. A one night stand (before which, borrowing a storyline from Friends, Kim and Laura battle each other over the last condom in the house) results in Kim becoming pregnant. She decides to raise the baby as a single mom, while still living with her friends, and the movie takes off from there.

On a side-note – L!fe Happens borrowed another storyline from Friends – the “We both do that!” storyline from the Season 1 episode titled “The One with Two Parts: Part 2,” which you can watch below. But, once again, I’m getting off track.

The house is featured prominently throughout L!fe Happens, although it is never mentioned how Kim (a dog-walker/personal assistant), Deena (a struggling writer) and Laura (who flits from job to job) can afford such an amazeballs residence.

While I loved the home’s unique exterior (especially the pentagonal roof!) . . .

. . . what I became most enamored with was its interior . . .

. . . especially the open stairwell.

I mean, could it be any more fabulous?? If I lived there, I would so be displaying books and picture frames on each step. Love, love, love!

While I originally thought that the interior was a set, after looking through these images, in which my beloved stairwell is visible in the background (comparison screen caps of that scene from the movie are pictured below), I now believe that the real life interior of the home was used in the filming. Unfortunately, I could not find any photographs with which to verify that, though. Either way, what I wouldn’t give to see the inside of that place! UPDATE – I just came across this Curbed LA article which features photos of the property and the interior was indeed used in L!fe Happens!

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The L!fe Happens house is located at 1802 South Oxford Avenue in the Pico-Union area of Los Angeles.

March 7, 2014
The All American Burger from “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead”

I was devastated to learn back in early 2010, thanks to fellow stalker Amanda, that The All American Burger on Sunset Boulevard, which masqueraded as Clown Dog restaurant in 1991’s Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, was being turned into a Chipotle Mexican Grill. I never expected that the historic eatery was going to be demolished in the process, though, so when I drove by it later that same year, I was shocked to discover a vacant lot. All that remained of the once-popular burger shack was its neon signage. It was not until two weeks ago, though, while I was on my way to stalk Parisian Florist, that I saw the Chipotle outpost that now stands in its place. Sad as I was, I figured I might as well pull over and snap some pics so that I could write an updated post on the property.

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The All American Burger was originally founded in 1963 by a successful stockbroker named Aaron Binder. The company grew fairly quickly and, by 1970, four sister eateries had opened up throughout L.A. For reasons that are unclear, things took a turn for the worse in 1981 and the chain filed for bankruptcy. Binder was later found guilty of fraud (stemming from a tax shelter investment scheme) and sent to prison for ten years. He wound up serving 42 months. It is unclear what happened to the restaurants following the bankruptcy and Binder’s imprisonment, but I believe they were sold to several new owners. Each branch was eventually shuttered, except for the Sunset Boulevard location which, according to LA Weekly, was the last remaining of the chain, until it, too, closed its doors in early 2010. The subsequent demolition of the restaurant and rebuilding did not take long as Chipotle opened on the site in November of that same year.

I originally visited The All American Burger in December 2009 and it turned out to be one of my favorite stalking experiences ever. You can read about that stalk – in which I got to don an All American Burger uniform and go behind the counter – here.

Sadly, the Chipotle building looks nothing at all like the former The All American Burger. As I mentioned, the sole remnant of the historic eatery is its signage – or at least a portion of it. As you can see below, the hand pointing to the parking lot that was part of the All American Burger sign was incorporated into Chipotle’s new sign.

I would say I love the fact that Chipotle made the gesture, but I’m too darn sad that The All American Burger was demolished in the first place.

While doing research for this post I learned that it was directly across the street from The All American Burger, on the curb in front of 7677 Sunset Boulevard, that Hugh Grant infamously picked up a prostitute named Divine Brown in the early morning hours of June 27th, 1995. Hugh then drove Divine three blocks to the corner of Hawthorn and North Curson Avenues, where the two indulged in “lewd conduct” and were eventually arrested. Oddly, neither seemed to be negatively affected by the arrest. Hugh’s career did not miss a beat and, according to this 2010 Daily Mail article, Divine made about $1 million off of the 20-minute encounter and wound up leaving the “business” for good. She currently runs a music production company in Atlanta.

In Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, The All American Burger stood in for Clown Dog restaurant, where Sue Ellen Crandell (Christina Applegate) worked for a day and met her future boyfriend, delivery boy Bryan (The Good Wife’s Josh Charles).

The real life interior of the eatery was also used in the movie.

The All American Burger was featured in a couple of other productions during its too-short lifetime. In the Season 2 episode of Californication titled “La Petite Mort,” which aired in 2008, the restaurant was where Hank Moody (David Duchovny) confronted his daughter’s boyfriend, Damian (Ezra Miller).

And in 2009, the eatery was where Officer John Cooper (Michael Cudlitz) and Officer Ben Sherman (cutie Ben McKenzie – sigh!) responded to a 911 call from a customer complaining that her regular lunch spot was out of chicken nuggets (LOL) in the Season 1 episode of Southland titled “Derailed.”

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The All American Burger, aka Clown Dog restaurant from Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, was formerly located at 7660 West Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. The property is now the site of a Chipotle Mexican Grill.

February 20, 2014