Be sure to check out my latest article for Discover Los Angeles. I went quite a bit outside of my comfort zone for this one and wrote about unusual landscapes and buildings featured in iconic science fiction movies – a genre I am not a huge fan of. I think it turned out well despite that fact. Hope you enjoy it.
The latest WeScoutLA video, brought to you by Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and yours truly, is now up on YouTube. In it, we take you on a visit to Charles Evans Hughes Junior High School, aka the high school used in the original The Karate Kid. You can watch the video by clicking above. Enjoy!
Happy 2015, folks! Now that the holidays have come to a close, I will (hopefully) be back to my regularly scheduled blogging. So here goes. Stalking is obviously my favorite pastime, but shopping comes in at a close second. So when I get an opportunity to combine the two, I jump at it. A couple of weeks ago, the Grim Cheaper and I traveled to L.A. for a holiday party and decided to do some Christmas shopping the following morning before driving back to the desert. Because I wanted to further investigate the Contempo Casuals that appeared in fave movie Clueless, I insisted we head over to Westfield Fashion Square. For those who missed my August post about the Sherman Oaks mall and its appearance in the 1995 romcom, I’ll recap.
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For years now, misinformation has been rolling around the internet about which shopping center Cher (Alicia Silverstone) and friends shopped at in Clueless. As I came to find out during a recognizance shopping mission in August, though, more than one mall actually appeared in the flick. The establishing shot of the shopping center shown in the movie was of the Westside Pavilion in Rancho Park. But the interior scene in which some “Barneys” tried to throw Tai (Brittany Murphy) off a balcony was lensed about ten miles north of the Pavilion at Westfield Fashion Square in Sherman Oaks.
While everyone and their mother has stated online that the Contempo Casuals that appeared in Clueless was the one formerly located at the Beverly Center in Beverly Grove, during the writing of my August post I started to believe that the Fashion Square Contempo Casuals was the outpost that had most likely been featured in the flick. As I explained in the post, “Once I realized that Tai’s near-death experience had been filmed at Fashion Square, I got to thinking that the Contempo Casuals scenes were most likely shot there, as well. It did not make sense to me that producers would go to the trouble of shooting the C.C. scenes elsewhere, especially considering that they were both extremely brief. So I did some research and learned that there was indeed a Contempo Casuals located at Fashion Square in the mid-nineties, as you can see here and here. I scanned through the C.C. scenes again and just about fell off my chair when I spotted the number 22 posted on the store’s window. And while I could find no such numbers in any pictures of the Beverly Center via a Google image search, I did spot a number in the same style and color on the front of Victoria’s Secret in one of the photographs I had taken at Fashion Square a few years prior (pictured below). Then I came across this listing and just about died of excitement upon discovering that the company currently located in storefront 22 of the Westfield Fashion Square is none other than Wet Seal, the very same brand that took over Contempo Casuals in 1995! Based on all of that, I am 99.9% certain that the only mall interior that appeared in Clueless was Westfield Fashion Square. ” Since that post, I have discovered that the suite numbers of stores at the Beverly Center are three-digit (as you can see here), not two, which is further proof that the C.C. from Clueless was not located there.
So, while Christmas shopping with the GC, I set out to snap some pics of the Fashion Square Wet Seal and prove once and for all that my theory was correct.
I was a bit dismayed to discover upon my arrival that not only had the font and styling of the store’s numbers been changed since both the filming of Clueless in 1994 (the movie premiered in 1995, but was shot in 1994) and since my photograph of Victoria’s Secret was taken in 2012, but that Wet Seal’s actual suite number had been altered as well. It is now addressed #21, instead of #22. At first, I thought that Wet Seal might have moved storefronts at some point, but then I spoke with the incredibly nice people working at BCBG Max Azria (the company that currently occupies #22) and they explained that Fashion Square’s suite numbers do change on occasion. Apparently, sometimes when a store closes, its space will be subdivided into smaller spaces and the neighboring suite numbers need to be shifted accordingly. BCBG’s manager also informed me that Wet Seal had not moved storefronts since she started working at Fashion Square fifteen years ago. She was also fairly certain that prior to Wet Seal opening, the space had housed a Contempo Casuals. Eureka!
Contempo Casuals popped up twice in Clueless. It first appeared in the scene in which Cher attempted to gather her thoughts and regain her strength via a shopping trip. That scene gave us a good glimpse of C.C.’s interior. Though it has been remodeled since Wet Seal took over, as you can see below the basic set up of the store is the same today as it was in Clueless. Both Wet Seal and the store from Clueless are large (Wet Seal is one of Fashion Square’s larger storefronts, as I came to discover during my stalking mission), extremely long and narrow, and boast very high ceilings (unusually high compared to the other shops located in the mall).
In a later scene, Dionne (Stacey Dash) is shown standing outside of Contempo Casuals while talking to Cher on her cell phone. As you can see below, the split-glass-paneled frontage shown in the movie matches that of Wet Seal, though the panels seem to be spaced further apart today than they were in 1994.
The central positioning of the entrance doors that appeared onscreen match the current positioning of Wet Seal’s doors, as well. Thanks to all of these correlations, I can now say with absolute certainty that the Contempo Casuals scenes from Clueless were shot at Westfield Fashion Square, not at the Beverly Center.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Wet Seal, aka the former Contempo Casuals from Clueless, can be found in Suite 21 of Westfield Fashion Square, which is located at 14006 Riverside Drive in Sherman Oaks. You can visit the mall’s official website here.
I would like to wish all of my fellow stalkers a very merry Christmas today! You can check out my new Los Angeles magazine post here – about Cindy’s Eagle Rock Restaurant from Surviving Christmas. My articles typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.
I cannot believe that Christmas is only two days away! This whole month (year, in fact) has flown by! Sadly, this will be my last post of the season (excluding one that will run on L.A. magazine’s website on Thursday). I will be taking the rest of the week off to do some last-minute shopping and to celebrate Christmas with my family. For my final holiday-themed post, I thought it would only be fitting to write about another The Holiday location – the Blockbuster Video featured in the 2006 romantic comedy.
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I had read online a while back that the Blockbuster used in The Holiday was located somewhere in Brentwood, so I did a simple Google search for “Blockbuster” and “Brentwood” and was led to a former location of the once-popular video store chain at 11770 San Vicente Boulevard. Today, the space houses a branch of the First Republic Bank, but thanks to the fact that several of its features have remained the same despite the change of hands, I was able to determine that it was the right spot.
First, I was able to match a tree located on San Vicente Boulevard across from First Republic Bank to the tree visible outside of the Blockbuster in the scene (though my photograph below was taken from a slightly different angle than that of the film).
For those who have never visited the area, San Vicente Boulevard is lined with a large central median that is dotted with numerous unusually-shaped trees, as you can see below.
Thanks to their highly unique formations, it was not hard for me to pinpoint the one featured in The Holiday.
The store’s large three-paned windows (denoted with Christmas tree arrows below) also match what appeared onscreen.
The windowed corner doorway from the Blockbuster in the movie also correlates to that of First National Bank, although it has been altered slightly in order to make room for the addition of an ATM vestibule.
In The Holiday, Blockbuster is where Iris Simpkins (Kate Winslet) and Miles (Jack Black) shop for the next videos on their friend Arthur Abbot’s (Eli Wallach) list of movies featuring strong, gumption-filled female characters. It’s funny to think about the fact that if the movie was being filmed today, only eight years after it was actually shot, this scene would be an impossibility considering the fact that video stores simply do not exist anymore – at least not in the L.A. area. (Outside of Vidiots, that is.) If The Holiday was shot today, Miles and Iris would instead have to peruse titles at a Redbox kiosk inside of a grocery store or online via the Netflix catalog, neither of which would have made for a very compelling scene.
In the scene, Miles, a film scorer, walks around Blockbuster picking up various DVD titles and humming their theme songs loudly to Iris. He happens to pick up The Graduate at one point and sings Simon & Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson,” at which time the camera pans over to reveal Dustin Hoffman perusing titles in a different part of the store. Hoffman shakes his head and says, “Can’t go anywhere!” Amazingly, that bit was not planned. According to director Nancy Meyer’s DVD commentary, Dustin happened to be eating next door to the Brentwood Blockbuster at the time the scene was being filmed. Upon leaving the restaurant, he noticed the film trucks and popped in to see what was being shot. He knew Nancy and decided to hang out for a bit to watch. When The Graduate portion of the scene was being filmed (the scene had been included in the original script and was not simply added because Hoffman was randomly on set), Dustin asked if he could make a cameo and Nancy, of course, said yes. He then adlibbed the “Can’t go anywhere!” line. Such a great story behind what turned out to be one of the movie’s funniest moments.
You can watch Dustin’s cameo by clicking below.
While doing research for today’s post, I learned that the same retail complex that formerly housed the Blockbuster from The Holiday also once housed the infamous Mezzaluna restaurant, where Nicole Brown Simpson ate dinner the night of her murder and where Ronald Goldman worked as a waiter. Today, that portion of the property is home to a Peet’s Coffee & Tea outpost. You can check out a photo of what it looked like when Mezzaluna was still in operation here.
On a side-note – The Grim Cheaper and I have recently become obsessed with the new podcast Serial. We are currently in the midst of listening to Episode 6: The Case Against Adnan Syed, so, please, no spoilers from those who have finished the series! Sarah Koenig, the podcast’s host, reminds me quite a bit of myself when it comes to doing research. Her investigation into the existence of a payphone at the Security Boulevard Best Buy in Baltimore, Maryland was exactly on par with many of the location hunts I have been a part of over the years. Speaking of the payphone mystery, I am absolutely fascinated by it! It is the one detail of the story that remains constantly stuck in my head and I am convinced that my friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, and I could get to the bottom of the whole thing and prove once and for all whether or not the Best Buy in question ever had a payphone on the premises. Are you listening, Owen? Let’s get on this!
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The Blockbuster Video from The Holiday was formerly located at 11770 San Vicente Boulevard in Brentwood. Today, the site houses a branch of First Republic Bank. Pete’s Coffee & Tea, the former site of Mezzaluna restaurant, is located at the opposite end of the same shopping complex at 11750 San Vicente.
I typically cover only one location each day on my blog, but today I’m giving you ten! Head on over to Discover Los Angeles to check out my latest article about holiday movie and television locations. Enjoy!
Be sure to read today’s Los Angeles magazine post – about numerous locations from Paul Thomas Anderson movies. My articles typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.
My good friend Lavonna is all about Christmas. So when she came out to SoCal for a visit, along with Kim, Melissa and Maria, last month, she had a few suggestions of holiday-themed locations for me to stalk. One of the locales was the former Hancock Park home of Nat King Cole, the African American crooner who was the very first artist to record Bob Wells and Mel Tormé’s immensely popular carol “The Christmas Song” in 1946. So we ran right over to stalk the place on the ladies’ last day in L.A.
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Cole and his wife, Maria, purchased the sprawling 6,831-square-foot home in 1948. Reports vary as to what the couple paid for the property – some say $65,000, others say $75,000, and still others claim $85,000. Whatever the case, the Coles’ new neighbors were not happy about the sale. The Hancock Park Property Owners Association even stepped in, at one point offering Nat $25,000 plus the purchase price of the residence to walk away from the deal. Nat declined, causing one homeowner to approach the singer and inform him that he didn’t want “undesirables” living in the area. Cole responded, “Neither do I. If I see any, I’ll let you know.” Despite the opposition, Maria and Nat and their adopted daughter, Carole, moved into the Tudor-style residence on August 13th.
The massive 1924 property, which sits on a 0.7-acre corner plot of land, boasts five bedrooms, five baths, maids’ quarters, a library with a fireplace, a master suite with a fireplace, a tennis court, a guest house, a pool house, a pool and two patios.
In a May 2014 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Nat and Maria’s second oldest daughter, singer Natalie Cole, recounts growing up in the home as an idyllic experience. The holidays were an especially magical time. She says, “Christmas was a big holiday in our house. My dad was always home for the holiday and would have the fireplace going and music playing. We had a huge tree on the front lawn that must have been 40 feet tall. We’d decorate it and the lawn with lights and a Santa Claus that waved, and reindeer that rocked back and forth to simulate running.” You can see a photo of the Coles in front of the dwelling during the time that they lived there here. Today, much more foliage surrounds the property.
In 1951, federal agents seized the home from Nat for non-payment of $146,000 in back income taxes. He quickly paid the amount owed and reclaimed the property. The singer passed away in 1965, and Maria continued to live at the residence until 1972, at which time she sold it to a family friend and moved to the east coast. Of the home’s sale, Natalie says, “My sister and I were so upset. It was all we had left of our childhood and our dad. From time to time, I drive past the house today, but I’ve never stopped to surprise the owners with, ‘Hi, sorry to bother you. I used to live here.’ Seeing it is so bittersweet. From what I can tell, it’s still a beautiful home. Only black families have lived there since we left, and all have taken wonderful care of it. I would love to buy it someday. I’m curious to know what it’s even worth at this point.” Well, Natalie, here you go – according to Zillow, the pad is currently valued at a whopping $5,228,372!
You can watch a video of Nat King Cole singing “The Christmas Song” by clicking below. An interesting bit of holiday trivia for you – apparently Bob Wells and Mel Tormé had not set out to write a classic carol when penning “The Christmas Song.” Instead, during one particularly hot day in the summer of 1944, the two were simply trying to keep cool by jotting down terms having to do with cold weather. Forty-five minutes later and one of the most popular Christmas songs in history was born, boasting those classic lyrics we all know and love like “Jack Frost nipping at your nose.”
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.
Big THANK YOU to my good friend Lavonna for telling me about this location and suggesting that I blog it! 
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Nat King Cole’s former house is located at 401 South Muirfield Road in Hancock Park.
This past weekend, while wandering through my local Target with the Grim Cheaper, I happened to spot a DVD of fave movie The Holiday on sale for $3.99! When I saw that the special features included a commentary with director Nancy Meyers and a making-of featurette, I just about flipped my lid and immediately snapped the DVD up. (Though I have seen The Holiday more times than I can count, because I own it on iTunes, I had never seen any of the special features.) It was perfect timing, too, since I am now (finally) in the midst of writing my Christmas-themed posts. I had also just stalked The Grill on the Alley, which was featured in the flick, this past November while my friends Lavonna, Kim, Melissa and Maria were in town (that’s Melissa and Maria above), so I was most excited to listen to the commentary from that portion of the film.
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The Grill on the Alley was originally founded in January 1984 by a man named Bob Spivak. The food industry ran in Bob’s veins – his grandfather owned a Los Angeles ice cream/chocolate shop in the early 1900s and his father was the founder of the Redwood House, now known as the Redwood Bar & Grill, which was featured in Bridesmaids and which I blogged about here. In 1982, at the age of 39 and after a long tenure working in a grocery store and a short tenure owning a soup/salad restaurant, Bob found himself at a transition point in life. Recently divorced, without a job and living on his father’s couch, he decided he wanted to open an upscale steakhouse in Beverly Hills, one that offered fabulous customer service and no-nonsense food. He found financial backers fairly quickly and then secured a space to lease. The only problem with the 4,600-square-foot spot was that its main frontage was on an extremely traffic-y block of Wilshire Boulevard, on a stretch of street that did not allow parking until after 7 p.m. each day. (The Wilshire side of the building is pictured below.)
The location did have a rear entrance, though, reached via a side alley off of Dayton Way, which gave Bob an idea. In a February 2014 The Hollywood Reporter article, he explains, “I went to the building department and asked to place the entrance on the alley. They wouldn’t let me due to an ordinance against businesses opening onto an alley that they had in place. So I pulled maps and realized I had less than an inch of Dayton frontage and went to a hardware store, bought a mailbox and painted 9560 Dayton on it. Just made that address up. Then I went to the post office, mailed myself a letter, got it delivered and showed the canceled stamp to the building department. They approved it!”
That “less than an inch of Dayton frontage” is denoted with red arrows below. What a great story!
Thanks to its proximity to the headquarters of the William Morris Talent Agency, The Grill soon became the place “to lunch” in Beverly Hills. Just a few of the power players and their clients who have been spotted dining there over the years include Michael Ovitz, Sumner Redstone, Rupert Murdoch, Ron Meyer (father of Jennifer Meyer), Tom Brokaw, Vin Scully, Steven Spielberg, Bruce Springsteen, Fred Astaire, Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Muhammad Ali, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Barbra Streisand, Johnny Carson, Katie Holmes, Sean Penn, Madonna, Drew Barrymore, Joel McHale, and Michael Douglas.
The Grill remains insanely popular to this day, over thirty years after its founding. In fact, the eatery has spawned six additional Grill on the Alley locations, as well as the casual dining chain The Daily Grill, of which there are currently 21 outposts.
While we were stalking the place, we had the pleasure of meeting The Grill’s longtime maître d’, Pamela Gonyea . . .
. . . as well as the restaurant’s wine education coordinator, Carmen Rupe, both of whom could NOT have been nicer. Bob maintains that The Grill’s customer service philosophy is, “The answer is yes – now what was the question.” And we were certainly given that treatment despite the fact that we were not even dining on the premises! Carmen and Pamela spent quite a bit of time answering all of our questions about the various filmings that have taken place there over the years and they also let us take all of the photographs of the place that we wanted. Carmen even led us over to the center of the dining room to show us exactly where The Holiday had been filmed!
In The Holiday, The Grill on the Alley is where Iris Simpkins (Kate Winslet) takes Arthur Abbott (Eli Wallach) for dinner shortly after meeting him. Before inviting him to dine with her, Iris asks Arthur if he is busy that evening, to which he gives his famous line, “Busy? Honey, I haven’t been busy since 1978.”
According to Nancy Meyers’ DVD commentary, The Grill on the Alley was chosen for the scene because it is a place that Arthur, a former Hollywood screenwriter, and his colleagues would have frequented in their day. Nancy had the two seated at a regular table in the center of the Grill’s dining room to show they are just regular people, not the “Hollywood elite.” Apparently the booths that line the perimeter of the restaurant are considered prime real estate in real life and where the show biz power players are usually seated.
I, of course, just had to pose for a picture in the same spot where the movie was filmed.
Carmen and Pamela also informed us that The Grill had been featured in the Season 5 episode of Entourage titled “Fantasy Island.”
In the episode, The Grill on the Alley was the spot where Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) discussed the upcoming movie Danger Beach with producer Carl Ertz (Kim Coates). Notice that Vincent and Carl were seated in a perimeter booth in the scene.
Pamela was even visible in the episode!
Pamela and Carmen also let us know that the Season 5 episode of The Hills titled “Keep Your Enemies Closer” had been shot at the restaurant. In the episode, The Grill was where Stephanie Pratt went on a date with a DJ named Robert.
On a side-note – I would like to wish a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY today to my dad, who, despite being chronically ill, always finds a way to regularly do special, extraordinary things for my mom, the GC and me. I love you so much! (That’s me and my dad pictured below during one of my very first trips to Disneyland.)
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The Grill on the Alley, from The Holiday, is located at 9560 Dayton Way in Beverly Hills. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.
It’s finally that time of year again, folks! Time for some Christmas-themed posts! And I could NOT be more excited. First up is a locale that I had been searching for for years – the sushi restaurant where Iris Simpkins (Kate Winslet) and Miles (Jack Black) dined towards the end of The Holiday. During my lengthy search for the eatery, I spent countless hours inputting terms like “sushi restaurant,” “The Holiday” and “filming” into Google, but always came up empty-handed. Then, this year, I decided to ask for some help and called in my friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, to see if he could work his magic in finding it. Sure enough, he did! After numerous Google inquiries using, as he stated, “Soooooooo many combinations and permutations” of terms, he sent an email to The Holiday’s production manager who got back to him right away and informed him that the restaurant was in Venice. Adding “Venice” to his search terms led him to a Yelp review of Chaya Venice, in which a patron named Hayley M. mentioned that the place had appeared in The Holiday. Yahoo! So I ran right on over there for lunch while I was in L.A. a couple of weeks ago.
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Chaya Venice was originally founded by the Tsunoda family in 1990. The Tsunodas’ tenure in the culinary field is an extensive one that has lasted almost forty decades. Yes, you read that right – forty decades! About 390 years ago, the family set up shop, so to speak, under a large tree in Hayama, Japan, where they served tea and snacks to travelers on horseback who happened to pass by. At some point thereafter, they opened an inn on the site, which was eventually transformed into a Japanese restaurant that they named “Hikage Chaya.” (Chaya means “teahouse” in Japanese.) It is still open today. A second restaurant, La Maree de Chaya, which served French food, soon followed.
In the 1980s, the Tsunodas migrated to the United States and, in 1984, opened Chaya Brasserie in Beverly Hills. It, too, is still in operation today. Sister restaurants, including Chaya Venice, soon began to pop up and there are currently four Chaya outposts located throughout California. The eateries, which serve French/Japanese cuisine, are headed by executive chef Shigefumi Tachibe, who just so happens to be the inventor of tuna tartare. He created the dish at Chaya Brasserie the same year that the eatery opened, after a patron requested an alternative to the steak tartare that was then being offered on the prix-fixe menu. The rest, as they say, is history.
I absolutely loved my experience at Chaya Venice! While I am not a fan of sushi (I do not like most fish), I opted for some veggie rolls and they were delish! The staff also could not have been nicer to me and answered all of my silly little questions about the filming of The Holiday. The atmosphere of the place is quite beautiful, too. It is not very hard to see why Chaya Venice wound up being featured on the silver screen.
I was particularly obsessed with the restaurant’s painted ceiling. Gorgeous!
In The Holiday, Chaya Venice was where Miles and Iris were eating lunch when Miles’ ex-girlfriend, Maggie (Shannyn Sossamon), called to tell him she wanted him back.
As you can see, the place looks much the same in person as it did onscreen.
“Accidental boob graze!”
The Holiday is not the only production to have been lensed at Chaya Venice. In the Season 5 episode of The Hills titled “Mess with Me, I Mess With You,” which was filmed in 2009, Stephanie Pratt and Audrina Patridge grabbed lunch at the eatery and discussed Kristin Cavallari and Justin Bobby’s burgeoning relationship.
And in the Season 5 episode of Californication titled “The Ride-Along,” which aired in 2012, Chaya Venice was where Richard Bates (Jason Beghe) got naked while standing on a sushi bar.
The entrance to Chaya Venice also appeared in the episode.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.
Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location! 
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Chaya Venice, from The Holiday, is located at 110 Navy Street in Venice. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.
