A Lot Like Love – IAMNOTASTALKER

September 26, 2018December 6, 2018

Counterpoint Records and Books from “A Lot Like Love”

I obviously need to start paying closer attention to things because for years I was under the impression that all of the locations from fave movie A Lot Like Love had been tracked down. But while scanning through the 2005 romcom to make screen captures for my recent post on the home where Oliver’s (Ashton Kutcher) parents lived in the flick, I just about fell out of my chair when I realized that one spot remained unearthed – the record/book store where Emily Friehl (Amanda Peet) met – or I guess I should say “re-met” – her future fiancé, Ben Miller (Jeremy Sisto). Being that unknown locales plague me like no other and that there’s pretty much nothing I love more than a good book shop, I immediately set about IDing the place. As fate would have it, the hunt turned out to be one of the easiest of my entire stalking career.

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In A Lot Like Love, Emily reconnects with Ben, after initially meeting him at a mutual friend’s wedding, at a spacious record/book store where the two banter over the last copy of an import CD they both want. Feeling lucky, I headed to Google, inputted “large record bookstore Los Angeles” and the very first result kicked back was for Counterpoint Records and Books at 5911 Franklin Avenue in the Hollywood Hills. One look at images of the place told me it was the right spot. If only all of my searches were so simple! So to the top of my To-Stalk List the site went and I headed right on over there a few weeks later.

Counterpoint Records and Books was originally established by John Polifronio and his then girlfriend/now wife Susan way back in 1979 as a classical music boutique that operated out of the back of The Book Treasury, formerly located at 6707 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.

Because of the Boulevard’s rather sketchy nature at the time, the couple decided to relocate the following year and sublet a 600-square-foot portion of a frame store in the more shopper-friendly Franklin Village.

Popular from the get-go, it was not long before John and Susan needed to expand, first taking over the entire frame shop and then spreading over into the storefront next door.

The couple also soon decided to branch out. Longtime collectors of rare and used books, John and Susan eventually found their home overflowing with volumes and elected to incorporate the excess tomes into their inventory.

In 1997, the duo purchased the building that houses Counterpoint, which Susan said in a 2012 interview was the saving grace in the store’s longevity.

The shop, which teems with colorful leaflets, thick novels, stacks of vinyl, copies of used VHS and cassette tapes, and racks upon racks of CDs, remains extremely popular today with locals and visitors alike.

Even actor Ron Livingston is a fan and included Counterpoint in his itinerary for a My Favorite Weekend column for the Los Angeles Times in 2006.

It is not hard to see why the store became such a neighborhood staple. Counterpoint Records and Books is warm, friendly and inviting. The employees that I spoke with not only invited me to take as many photos of the place as I wanted, but spent quite a bit of time chatting with me about the various filmings that have taken place on the premises over the years. Though, shockingly, not a one of them knew about A Lot Like Love!

In the movie, Emily and Ben reconnect while perusing the long CD rack in the middle of the store. Though that area of the shop is largely unchanged from the time that filming took place, the sections around it have been moved. During the shoot, the Religion, Philosophy and Occult sections were situated behind the CDs, but today those shelves house Fiction, as you can see below.

Philosophy and Religion can now be found on the opposite side of the room.

I was thrilled to see that, despite the move, the signage still looks exactly as it did onscreen.

There seems to be a bit of confusion concerning some of Counterpoint’s other cinematic appearances floating around online, so I’ll do my best to clear up the misinformation here.

The shop did pop up at the beginning of Prince’s 2004 “Musicology” music video, which you can watch here.

While many websites state that Counterpoint made an appearance in the 2010 movie Beginners, it was only featured in the trailer (which is where the still below comes from), not the actual film. It seems that the scene shot on the premises wound up on the cutting room floor. To confuse matters further, a different L.A. book boutique – the now defunct Cosmopolitan Book Shop at 7017 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood – does cameo a few times. It is there, not at Counterpoint, that Oliver (Ewan McGregor) and Anna (Melanie Laurent) peruse The Joy of Sex.

Counterpoint Records and Books pops up in Olly Murs’ 2012 “Troublemaker” music video, which you can check out here. (I would be remiss if I did not mention that Olly is such a cutie! I had never heard of him until writing this post and was pleasantly surprised to find while watching his video that he reminds me quite a bit of Michael Bublé in looks and mannerisms.)

Though Curbed Los Angeles reports that Joan Crawford’s (Jessica Lange) book signing in the Season 1 episode of Feud: Bette and Joan titled “You Mean All This Time We Could Have Been Friends?” was shot at Counterpoint, that information is incorrect. Perplexingly, the website even goes so far as to say “According to [production designer Judy] Becker, the production team built a book-signing station for the scene, which Counterpoint opted to keep after filming concluded.” But, as you can see below, the two-story venue that appeared in the episode looks nothing like Counterpoint. Filming actually took place at the Philosophical Research Library at the University of Philosophical Research located at 3910 Los Feliz Boulevard in Los Feliz. You can check out some photos of the space here and here.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Counterpoint Records and Books, from A Lot Like Love, is located at 5911 Franklin Avenue in the Hollywood Hills. You can visit the store’s official website here.

August 13, 2018September 24, 2018

Oliver’s House from “A Lot Like Love”

A Lot Like Love is a movie I can’t not watch. Even though I’ve seen it at least a dozen times and own the DVD, if I happen to catch it on TV, need to scan through it for a post, or it pops up in my Netflix recommendations, I’m pretty much viewing it in its entirety. And thank goodness, too, because doing so led me to find a new location from the film recently, one that I thought I had already pinpointed – the house belonging to Oliver Martin’s (Ashton Kutcher) parents in the 2005 romcom. First, let me back up a bit.

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Ten years ago (egads!), my buddy Mike, from MovieShotsLA, tracked down what I thought was the Martin residence via a 2006 Los Angeles Times article chronicling homes featured onscreen. In the blurb, author Danny Miller states, “Encino resident Ramona Hennesy creates brochures showing her house’s best features and sends them off to location scouts all over town. Her efforts have paid off. Several commercials have been filmed in her ranch home. Last year, the house had a featured role in the film A Lot Like Love. Both the interior and the backyard were used, and her carport was even transformed into Ashton Kutcher’s bedroom.” A quick scan through public records provided us with the property’s address (17050 Magnolia Boulevard) and I ran right out to stalk the place shortly thereafter. Upon arriving, I was surprised to see the pad fronted by large hedges that obscured it almost entirely from view, as you can see below. What little was visible did not look familiar from the movie, as I mentioned in the post I wrote about the locale a few days later.

Google Maps imagery from 2007 (two years after the movie was released) show the hedges in a much less mature state, so figuring they were a post-A Lot Like Love addition, I did not think much further on the subject.

Flash forward to this past April. While making screen captures of the flick in preparation for this post, I fell into the familiar trap of viewing it through to the end and was shocked to see an address number of “17204” posted by the front door of the house across the street from Oliver’s parents’ place in the closing scene in which Oliver and his longtime on-again/off-again paramour Emily Friehl (Amanda Peet) finally get together. That number, though close, did not exactly coincide with the 17050 address of the property I’d blogged about all those years ago. What the whaaat? So I headed over to Google to search for homes numbered 17204 in the Los Angeles area and quickly came across one at 17204 Otsego Street in Encino that matched the residence Emily and Oliver kissed in front of, albeit with quite a bit more foliage.

From there, I flipped Google Street View’s little yellow man around to see the property across the street and, sure enough, Oliver’s parents’ house was staring me right in the face (again, with quite a bit more foliage). Had the article gotten things wrong?

Confused, I pulled up the old Los Angeles Times article and quickly realized that I had read too much between the lines all those years ago (that was back when I was an amateur stalker, after all Winking smile ). I’d simply assumed the Magnolia Boulevard residence had been used for exteriors and interiors, as well as backyard shots, but the article never actually mentions the front exterior at all. D’oh! As I soon came to find out, Oliver’s parents’ house was a mash-up of both properties, which are located right around the corner from each other. The Otsego Street house was utilized in all scenes featuring the front of the Martin home . . .

. . . including the final scene, which was my favorite of the movie. While there, I couldn’t help but re-enact the hissy fit Oliver’s sister, Ellen (Taryn Manning), has over the fact that Oliver is holding up her wedding. (Lucifer fans – that’s Aimee Garcia, aka forensics expert Ella Lopez, in the pink dress below! She plays Ellen’s best friend in the movie.)

All interior filming took place just around the corner at the Magnolia Boulevard house.

As you can see in the screen capture as compared to my photograph below, the roofline and window framing of 17050 Magnolia match that of the Martin home.

The shape of the Martin’s pool and its location in regard to the house, as well as the residence’s rear roofline . . .

. . . all also match what is visible of the Magnolia Boulevard dwelling in aerial views.

As mentioned in the Los Angeles Times article, the property’s carport was transformed into Oliver’s bedroom for the movie.

Luckily, the Magnolia Boulevard home’s front gates were open when I stalked the place back in 2008, so I got to snap a couple of photos of said carport.

Why producers chose to use two properties in the film is unclear to me, but I am guessing it has something to do with the hedges surrounding the Magnolia Boulevard residence, which I now believe were there at the time of the A Lot Like Love shoot. The movie’s final scene, in which Emily runs from Oliver’s house to her car parked across the street, required a location that was open to the road. I think the production team likely fell in love with the Magnolia pad’s interior, but found the exterior too closed-off for the end sequence, so they searched for a secondary property to utilize. I was hoping the DVD commentary with director Nigel Cole and producers Armyan Bernstein and Kevin Messick would provide some clarification on the subject, but, other than the fact that filming of the wedding segment took place in the Valley, nothing was said about the Martin residence.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The house used for exterior shots of Oliver’s parents’ residence in A Lot Like Love can be found at 17201 Otsego Street in Encino. The pad Emily parks in front of at the end of the movie is directly across the street at 17204 Otsego. The home utilized for interior and backyard sequences is located around the corner at 17050 Magnolia Boulevard.

April 16, 2018April 15, 2018

Oliver’s San Francisco House from “A Lot Like Love”

I have made no secret over the years of my obsession with the 2005 romcom A Lot Like Love. And I thought I was quite well-versed in its locations. So I was shocked when fellow stalker Tovangar2 (you may remember him from this post) published a comment on my site in November 2015 alerting me to the fact that the supposed San Francisco house where Oliver Martin (Ashton Kutcher) lived in the flick was actually located in Los Angeles – at 1321 Carroll Avenue in Echo Park, to be exact. For the life of me I could not remember the exterior of Oliver’s SF residence being shown in the movie, so I immediately popped my A Lot Like Love DVD into my computer, started scanning, and, sure enough, about 45 minutes in was a shot of Oliver returning to a large Victorian pad after a long day at work. Considering I’ve seen the film about 25 times, I don’t know how I missed it! Fortunately, I happened to be in L.A. just a few days after learning about the locale, so I ran right out to stalk it. Thank you, Tovangar2!

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According to Big Orange Landmarks, the pad, which is known as the Beaudry House in real life, has quite an interesting history. Constructed in the Queen Anne/Eastlake style in 1887, the dwelling was initially located at 1145 Court Street, just west of North Boylston, about seven blocks south of where it currently stands. You can check out a map showing where it was originally situated here.

By the late ‘70s, the Beaudry House had grown severely dilapidated, the result of a downturn in the neighborhood and negligible maintenance. Though the property as well as its neighbor, the Irey House at 1123 Court Street, were rewarded Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument status, they both suffered from vandalism, graffiti and age. At around the same time, a group of Carroll Avenue homeowners banded together to form the Carroll Avenue Restoration Foundation in the hopes that they could thwart the development of a large vacant plot of land on their street. Fearing that the addition of a sizeable contemporary residence on the lot would be at odds with the community’s decidedly historic Victorian aesthetic, the organization resolved to purchase the plot and relocate the Beaudry and Irey Houses there. Thanks to some savvy maneuvering and many generous donations, CARF was successful and the two dwellings were moved via flatbed truck to their new street on March 22nd, 1978. You can check out a photo of the drive, which took two hours to complete, here.

Today, the Beaudry House, which is actually classified as a duplex, is a glowing example of preserved Victorian architecture. The 3,201-square-foot property – which consists of a 1-bedroom, 1-bath unit downstairs and a 2-bedroom, 1-bath second-level space, as well a carriage house that has been converted into a studio – boasts pocket doors, period sconces, wood detailing, stained glass windows, a 3-car garage, and 0.28 acres of land.

The residence last sold in December 2015 for $1.2 million. You can check out some interior photos from the listing here. Because the pad is a duplex with a converted carriage house, it oddly has three different kitchens, which is a bit jarring to see.

Here’s hoping the new owners will convert the property back into a single-family home.

The Beaudry House appears only once in A Lot Like Love, in the scene in which Oliver returns home from work to learn that his live-in girlfriend Bridget (Moon Bloodgood) wants to break up with him just minutes before dinner guests are expected to arrive. in the movie, the residence actually belongs to Bridget. As Oliver later explains to his on-again/off-again love Emily Friehl (Amanda Peet), “I’ve been killing myself at work – nights, weekends, even at home. Well, Bridget’s home. See, I moved in with her. That was my big mistake right there. I should have stuck to the plan. I mean, the plan, the plan was working! And the irony of it is that Bridget actually loves plans.”

The actual interior of the property was also featured in the film, as you can see in the screen capture as compared to the MLS photo of the home pictured below.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Big THANK YOU to Tovangar2 for telling me about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Oliver’s “San Francisco” house from A Lot Like Love is located at 1321 Carroll Avenue in Echo Park. Several other homes in the neighborhood have also appeared onscreen – the Sanders House at 1145 Carroll is where Ola Ray hid from zombies in Michael Jackson’s Thriller, 1329 Carroll portrayed the Halliwell sisters’ residence on Charmed, Don Draper (Jon Hamm) grew up at 1355 Carroll on Mad Men, and Holly’s (Amy Ryan) Nashua house from the “Employee Transfer” episode of The Office is around the corner at 1347 Kellam Avenue.

August 29, 2013August 10, 2018

Echo Park

One location that I have wanted to stalk ever since June 2012, when I wrote my post about MacArthur Park from New Girl (which you can read here), was the similar-looking Echo Park in L.A.’s Echo Park neighborhood. Sadly though, my efforts were thwarted for over a year due to an extensive restoration project that was taking place on the premises. The property eventually reopened two months ago and I was absolutely chomping at the bit to stalk it, and finally managed to do just that a couple of weekends ago when the Grim Cheaper and I were in Los Angeles for a brief stay. I can honestly say that the place was worth the wait, though, because it is easily one of the most beautiful locales that I have ever visited.

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The 29-acre parcel of land now known as Echo Park was originally a natural ravine created from the flow of the Arroyo de Los Reyes stream. A 20-foot dam was built on the site in 1868 that turned the ravine into Reservoir Number 4, which provided drinking water to nearby residents. In 1892, the city decided to turn the reservoir and its neighboring land into a public park and landscape architect/Superintendent of the Department of Parks Joseph Henry Tomlinson was commissioned to design it. Legend has it that the site got its name due to the fact that Tomlinson heard an echo as he shouted across the property one day while developing the space. Echo Park, which was declared a City of Los Angeles Cultural Monument in 2006, is one of the oldest public parks in L.A.

Today, the 26-million-gallon, 13-acre Echo Park Lake serves as a detention basin for the City’s storm drain system. As stated in the “Land o’ Lake” article that was featured in the June 2013 issue of Los Angeles magazine, “Runoff from streets and storm drains pauses here before heading into the Los Angeles River and, ultimately, the ocean. In dry weather about 110,000 gallons pass through the lake each day.”

The lake is perhaps best known for its iconic three-geyser fountain, which was installed as part of a Los Angeles beautification project just prior to the 1984 Olympic Games.

In 2011, a two-year, $45-million restoration/water quality project was begun, during which 40,000 cubic yards of sediment was removed from the bottom of the lake – as was trash, debris and random discarded items including a skateboard, a Frisbee and a toilet (LOL!). Four acres of wetland were also added to the premises . . .

. . . as well as two observation decks, a café and a large jogging path.

The site’s vast lotus bed (once the largest lotus bed in the western United States), which had disappeared by 2008, was also restored thanks to a fortuitous bit of thievery.

In 2005, a horticulturalist named Randy McDonald pilfered a lotus from the lake, violating a municipal code which states that removing plants from city parks is illegal. He cultivated the small stem and began selling its offshoots to unsuspecting customers. A few years later, when the restoration project first got underway, landscape architect Josh Segal heard buzzings that McDonald had a spawn of the iconic Echo Park lotus plant and contacted him. He wound up purchasing 376 plants from the thief – at a cost of $30,000! – to stock the new and improved lake. As journalist Marisa Gerber wrote in a June 2013 Los Angeles Times article, “Finding McDonald gave the restoration ‘a special story that involves theft,’ Segal said, breaking into a laugh. ‘It’s L.A.’”

The netting that currently covers the lotus bed, as well as most of the other vegetation in the park, will be in place for about a year and serves to protect the greenery from hungry birds.

The newly restored Echo Park was reopened to the public on June 15th, 2013.

The result is easily one of the most picturesque places I have ever visited in my life.

Shortly after the reopening, the lake’s infamous pedal boats were also brought back. And, as you can see below, business was booming when we showed up – the wait time to rent a boat was about two hours!

A café named Square One at the Boathouse was also launched in the park’s iconic 1932 boathouse shortly after the reopening.

Due to its immense picturesqueness, Echo Park has been featured in countless productions over the years – so many that it would be virtually impossible for me to list them all. What follows are some of the property’s onscreen highlights.

The park’s most famous appearance was arguably in the 1974 classic Chinatown, in which it was the spot where JJ Gittes (Jack Nicholson) secretly photographed Commissioner Hollis Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling), who was boating with a woman who was not his wife.

In 1991, Echo Park masqueraded as the Stationary Bike Riding Park, where running was not allowed, for the opening scene of fave movie L.A. Story.

In the 1991 thriller Dead Again, Mike Church (Kenneth Branagh) took Grace (Emma Thompson) on a date to Echo Park, where they ate at the boathouse and then walked around the lake.

Despite several websites claiming that the scene took place in MacArthur Park, Echo Park was actually where Dr. Kimberly Shaw (Marcia Cross) and Sydney Andrews (Laura Leighton) plotted to kill Dr. Michael Mancini (Thomas Calabro) in the 1994 Season 2 finale of Melrose Place, which was titled “Till Death Do Us Part.”

As you can see below, the view of the U.S. Bank Tower and Citigroup Center that was shown in the episode matches perfectly to the view of those buildings from Echo Park.

Echo Park was used again in the 1996 Season 4 episode of Melrose Place titled “Melrose Unglued,” as the place where Jo Reynolds (Daphne Zuniga) and Dr. Dominick O’Malley (Brad Johnson) confronted Laurie (Justine Priestley – Jason Priestley’s twin!) about their suspicion that her son was being abused.

In the 1992 flick Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, Echo Park was where Sgt. Joe Bomowski (Sylvester Stallone) picnicked with him mom, Tutti Bomowski (Estelle Getty).

Echo Park was turned into the supposed San Francisco-area cemetery where the the funeral for Mark Chao (John Cho) was held in the Season 1 episode of Charmed titled “Dead Man Dating.”

The park also popped up in the 2003 Season 5 episode of Charmed titled “House Call,” as the spot where Paige Matthews (Rose McGowan) reunited with Glen Belland (Jesse Woodrow).

In 2001’s Training Day, Det. Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington) and Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke) drove by Echo Park shortly after Harris forced Hoyt to smoke PCP.

In the 2003 comedy National Security, Earl Montgomery (Martin Lawrence) almost got arrested by police officer Hank Rafferty (Steve Zahn) for “breaking into” his own car while at Echo Park.

Emily (Amanda Peet) tells Oliver (Ashton Kutcher) about her new fiancé at Echo Park in a deleted scene from the 2005 romcom A Lot Like Love.

Echo Park was where Dwight ‘Bucky’ Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) met with Pete Lukins (Gregg Henry) to talk about an upcoming fight in the beginning of the 2006 film The Black Dahlia.

Southland filmed at Echo Park no less than three times during its five-season run. It first popped up in the 2010 Season 2 episode titled “U-Boat,” as the place where Officer John Cooper (Michael Cudlitz) and Officer Chickie Brown (Arija Bareikis) pulled over a car after seeing dope being thrown out of the window.

In the Season 2 episode titled “What Makes Sammy Run?,” which also aired in 2010, Echo Park was where Tammi Bryant (Emily Bergl) was confronted by thugs while taking photographs.

And in the Season 3 episode titled “Fixing a Hole,” which aired in 2011, Officer Cooper and Officer Ben Sherman (my man Benjamin McKenzie) interviewed park-goers outside of the Echo Park boathouse about a boy who had just been found.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Echo Park is located at 751 Echo Park Avenue in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.

March 13, 2012March 14, 2012

Casbah Café from “A Lot Like Love”

Today’s blog is going to be a short one as I am heading out to the eye doctor in a bit to have my eyes dilated, which, second to being on an airplane, is my least favorite activity in the entire world. Speaking of flying, US Magazine recently published an article about celebrity riders which featured actor Billy Crystal’s “Flight Preboard Information”. The “Other notes” section of Billy’s rider states, “Normally holds hands w/ family during takeoff and landing. Keep informed of turbulence.” Um, LOVE IT! Like Billy, I, too, hold my parents’ hands during takeoff, and I am absolutely PETRIFIED of turbulence! Oh, how I wish I were a celebrity so that I could submit my very own flight rider in which I demanded that the crew keep me informed of any upcoming turbulence. Winking smile But I digress.

Anyway, just down the street from Bar Keeper – the store that stood in for Upon Gallery in fave movie A Lot Like Love, which I blogged about yesterday – is Casbah Café, a French Moroccan-style coffee shop that was also featured in the 2005 flick. And, even though I have already blogged about this location once before very briefly, I just had to drag the Grim Cheaper right on back over there to snap some pics – and grab some coffee, of course! – while we were in the area doing our Christmas shopping last December.

The Casbah Café, which first opened in 1997 and currently serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner, is a very unique and quirky independent coffee house/gift boutique that sells clothing, jewelry and home furnishings collected from various locales around the world, including India, Mexico, Morocco, and Argentina. The shop’s eccentric interior features blue- and orange-painted walls covered in large framed tapestries, a French-inspired chalkboard mirror menu and exposed ductwork. In the March 2004 issue of Toro Magazine, journalist Stephen Hunt hit the nail on the head when he described the Casbah as follows: “On first glance, the café evokes one of those places where Indiana Jones hung out in Cairo. An almost too perfectly shady establishment in which to exchange letters of transit, or a Maltese falcon . . .” The place also has a definite hipster vibe to it. The GC always jokes that he is not cool enough to hang out there because he does not own a pair of skinny jeans. Winking smile And he is right – the Casbah Café is a place where skinny jeans abound.

Thanks to its fabulous coffee and free Wi-Fi, the Casbah Café has become insanely popular over the years – so popular, in fact, that curbside service has recently been added to provide for the many customers who cannot find a vacant table. Celebrities have even been known to pop into the eatery from time to time. Just a few of the stars who have gotten their caffeine fix there include Madonna, Mia Kirshner, Gwen Stefani, Sofia Coppola, Courtney Love, Patricia Arquette and clothing designer Diane von Furstenberg.

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In A Lot Like Love, Oliver Martin (Ashton Kutcher) and Emily Friehl (Amanda Peet) stop by the Casbah Café to grab coffee after their “silent” New Year’s Eve dinner. It is while there that Emily tries to pay for Oliver’s coffee, to which he says, “No. I appreciate the reach – the acting classes are really paying off – but I got it.” LOL

In a very brief scene in the Season 4 episode of Southland titled “Wednesday”, Officer Ben Sherman (cutie Ben McKenzie – sigh!) eats breakfast at the Casbah Café – and checks out some girls on their way to a yoga class while doing so.

The exterior of the Casbah Café shows up very briefly in The Freebie. According to a September 2010 Los Angeles Times article, Katie Aselton wrote the six-page outline for the 2010 indie flick while at the eatery and it even inspired one of the movie’s main storylines in which married man Darren (Dax Shepard) develops a crush on a barista at his local coffee shop. The Casbah will also be featured in the upcoming movie L!fe Happens, which stars Kate Bosworth, Rachel Bilson, and Krysten Ritter.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Casbah Café from A Lot Like Love is located at 3900 West Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake. You can visit the café’s official website here.

March 12, 2012March 11, 2012

Bar Keeper – aka Upon Gallery from “A Lot Like Love”

Back in December, shortly before Christmas, the Grim Cheaper and I headed out to Silver Lake to do some gift shopping for his father at one of the most unique, quirky and whimsical stores in all of Los Angeles – Sunset Junction’s Bar Keeper, the very same spot that stood in for Upon Gallery in fave movie A Lot Like Love. And even though I have actually already blogged about this location once before – way back in January of 2008, during the early days of my site – because it was not only a very brief write-up, but also lumped together with a few other A Lot Like Love locations, I figured the place was most-definitely worthy of a re-post. So here goes.

On its website, Bar Keeper is described as being a “head shop for those who want to prepare and serve their cocktails with style”. Specializing in everything from vintage glassware to bar collectibles to hard-to-find liquor, the place is truly one-of-a-kind. The store, which first opened its doors on April 4th, 2006, is the brainchild of former reality TV producer Joe Keeper, hence the “Keeper” in the name. Joe designed the entire shop himself, doing everything from laying down the flooring to constructing the L-shaped wooden bar from which he rings up customers’ purchases.

The walls of the unique shop are decorated with a larger-than-life periodic table of the elements, photographs of bartenders from local watering holes, over 70 vintage bar signs, and floor-to-ceiling wooden bookshelves which hold small-production bottles of liquor. Keeper scours the U.S. to find his unique stock of vintage barware and rare-label libations, traveling everywhere from the Rose Bowl Flea Market in Pasadena to such far-flung locales as Antique Alley, a 33-mile section of Old National Road in Indiana that boasts over 900 different antique dealers. In a December 2008 Los Angeles Times article, Keeper states, “In my heart of hearts, I realize I’m a gift shop, but really, what I feel like I sell is ritual, the art of drinking.” Well, whatever Joe is selling, people are definitely buying as the store has been extremely popular ever since it first opened. Some of Bar Keeper’s customers even include set designers from Mad Men who stop by regularly to pick up vintage pieces to feature on the show. Um, love it!

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In A Lot Like Love, Bar Keeper stood in for Upon Gallery, the art gallery where Oliver Martin (Ashton Kutcher) stumbled upon the nude photograph that he and longtime on-again/off-again girlfriend Emily Friehl (Amanda Peet) had taken a few years prior. At the time of the filming, the storefront, which formerly housed a vintage record shop, was vacant. The space pops up twice in the movie – first in the scene in which Olive spots his photograph and later when he returns there in the hopes of running into Emily. Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the store were featured in the flick.

The laundromat located across the street from Upon Gallery, where Oliver waited for Emily in A Lot Like Love, was actually a real life laundromat named Sunset LaunderLand.

Sadly though, according to the Eastsider LA website, the place closed its doors a couple of years ago and it looks to still be vacant and awaiting a new tenant.

The exterior of Bar Keeper also showed up very briefly in last week’s episode of fave show 90210, which was titled “Babes In Toyland”, in an establishing shot for the scene in which Dixon Wilson (Tristan Wilds) and Adrianna Tate-Duncan (Jessica Lowndes) waited at a café for the VP of A&R for Def Jam Records. The actual café where filming took place, though, was the Coffee Pot located at 2201 West Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park, a location that I will surely be stalking very soon. Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Bar Keeper, aka Upon Gallery from A Lot Like Love, is located at 3910 West Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake. You can visit the store’s official website here. Sunset LaunderLand, where Oliver waited for Emily in the movie, was formerly located across the street from Bar Keeper at 3903 West Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake. That site is currently vacant.

February 8, 2011February 8, 2011

The “A Lot Like Love” Apartment Building

A couple of weeks ago, fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210locations website, tweeted me to let me know that he had just tracked down the apartment building where Oliver Martin (aka Ashton Kutcher) lived in fave movie A Lot Like Love. As I have mentioned quite a few times before on this blog, A Lot Like Love is one of my all-time favorite romantic comedies and I have stalked pretty much every location featured in it – every location, that is, except for Oliver’s apartment building. So I was BEYOND excited to receive Geoff’s tweet and while out and about doing some stalking in the Hollywood area this past weekend, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place.

The building, which is called the Glen Oaks in real life, was actually featured only once in A Lot Like Love in the scene in which Oliver and Emily (aka Amanda Peet) return home after a New Year’s Eve party. It is when they walk into Oliver’s empty apartment that Emily discovers that he is moving to San Francisco the very next morning, just when, as she says, “I’m starting to like you”. The following morning, Emily awakens to discover that Oliver is already gone, but that he has left behind his beloved camera, which prompts her to begin a career in photography.

And it is obvious from the way the movie was shot that the real life interior of the apartment was also used in the filming.

I am very happy to report that the Glen Oaks building still looks much the same today as it did when A Lot Like Love was filmed back in 2005. The exterior paint color has since been changed, but the property is still very recognizable from the movie

The building also boasts an AMAZING view of the Hollywood sign.

In A Lot Like Love, Oliver lived in the building’s southwestern-most corner, bottom floor unit which is pictured above.

Big THANK YOU to Geoff, from the 90210locations website, for finding this location! Smile

Stalk It: Oliver’s apartment building from A Lot Like Love is located at 2649 North Beachwood Drive, at the corner of North Beachwood Drive and Glen Oak Street, in Hollywood. Oliver lived in the building’s southwestern-most unit on the bottom floor, which is denoted with the pink arrow in the above aerial view.

December 13, 2010March 3, 2011

Our Movie Locations-Themed Scavenger Hunt

My good friend/party planner extraordinaire Natalie Drees has become famous in our circle over the past few years for creating absolutely amazing customized scavenger hunts. She plans one for pretty much every event she hosts and not only are they insanely fun, but they also provide a fabulous way for people to get to know each other. So, once it was decided that our rehearsal dinner would take place at POP Champagne & Dessert Bar in Old Town Pasadena and that all of our family and friends would be invited, I asked Nat if she wouldn’t mind creating a movie locations-themed hunt to cap off our evening. And, thankfully, she said yes! Because Nat lives in San Francisco and therefore does not know the Pasadena area all that well, though – nor is she particularly into this thing that we call stalking – she enlisted the help of fellow stalker Owen to carry out the endeavor. And I have to say that the two pulled it off beautifully!

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Natalie figured that most of our guests wouldn’t be quite as into filming locations as I am, so she based the scavenger hunt not around finding where a specific production was filmed, but around finding particular restaurants and bars in Pasadena that also happened to be filming locations. If teams could subsequently figure out what was filmed at each particular restaurant or bar – by talking to their servers or using their iPhones – extra points would be awarded, but filming location knowledge was not in any way required to participate. Besides figuring out which location each clue referred to, teams would also be required to obtain specific items from each location in order to complete the hunt. As always, each team was given a set of pens, a bag to collect all of our scavenger hunt items, and a book detailing our assignment, the rules of the game, and the clues.

The booklets were handed out at the end of the rehearsal dinner at POP Champagne Bar and my best friend Kylee, who was managing the hunt, gave all of the teams five minutes to read them over, before yelling out “On your mark . . . get set . . . go!”. At that point our entire group of fifty literally RAN out of the restaurant! It was like a mass exodus and I can only imagine what our fellow diners were thinking! LOL The scavenger hunt clues read as follows:

Clue Number 1 –

It’s been said “men want

a lady on the street . . .”

Perhaps women want

An “uomo” who can take the heat.

Once they find him,

They’ll take some “pane”.

Bring it back to the judge

And you’ll “vincere”.

The solution to Clue Number 1 was the restaurant Il Fornaio, which was featured in the 2000 movie What Women Want and was actually the very first movie I ever saw being filmed upon moving to Los Angeles. Before purchasing a house, my parents and I lived in an apartment in Old Town Pasadena and we would walk down to Il Fornaio to grab a bite to eat at least once a week. We got to know quite a few people who worked at the eatery and one night one of the servers let us know that Mel Gibson was going to be filming a movie at the restaurant the very next day. So, my mom and I, of course, headed back there bright and early the following morning to watch! It was an extremely cool experience for both of us and while we did not get to meet Mel Gibson, he did wave to us and say ‘hi’ several times while on his various cigarette breaks. Anyway, Nat came up with the brilliant idea of using foreign words in each clue which correlated to the type of food served at the restaurants we were supposed to visit. In the case of Il Fornaio, which is Italian, she used several Italian words – “uomo” translates to “man”, “pane” to “bread”, and “vincere” to “win”. Well, once I read the words “women want”, I knew exactly which restaurant the clue was referring to and my team (which consisted of me and the GC, my best friend Robin and his girlfriend Steffi, and Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and his fiancé Ame) immediately headed on over there. Unfortunately though, my mom, of course, also immediately figured out the answer to the clue and was right on our heels! In the movie, Il Fornaio appeared in the scene in which Nick Marshall (aka Mel Gibson) has lunch with his daughter Alex Marshall (aka Ashley Johnson) after buying her a prom dress.

One of the rules of the game was that all teams would have to purchase a round of drinks at each and every bar, so as not to anger the various managements by having large groups of people running in and out of the restaurants, causing a disruption. When we arrived at Il Fornaio, Mike suggested that we each get a shot as we could drink them quickly and then be on to our next location. Well, I am a complete and total lightweight and typically do not drink anything other than champagne and I really did not want to be doing shots at each and every bar we went into the night before my wedding, so I quickly ixnayed that idea. But the next thing I knew, my friend Steffi had six full shot glasses lined up in front of her. I immediately said, “No, I can’t drink a shot!” to which she replied, “These are champagne shots!” I had no idea what on earth a champagne shot was, but she informed me that she had asked the bartender to pour a bit of champagne into six shot glasses. The bartender at first balked at the idea, but when Steffi explained that I was a soon-to-be bride who only drank champagne, she agreed and poured us our “champagne shots”. We are holding them in the above photograph and I can honestly say that that particular moment was one of my favorites of the entire wedding. So incredibly cute!!!!!!

Clue Number 2 –

Don may ride a white horse

To get to this filmed bar.

If he were in gay Paris

This would be more on par.

Once he arrived

A “serviette” he’d obtain.

In Pasadena it’s this,

Hopefully without a stain.

The solution to Clue Number 2 was Cheval Blanc Bistro, which I blogged about back in December of last year and which was used in the original Father of the Bride movie as the spot where George Banks (aka Steve Martin) takes Bryan MacKenzie (aka George Newbern) for a drink. Because there are not many French restaurants in Old Town Pasadena, this was an easy one. Also tipping me off to the clue’s answer was the fact that Don is my dad’s name, aka the name of the “father of the bride”. Amazingly enough, my mom and her team were hot on our tail upon arriving at this particular bar, as well! My aunt Lea, who was on my mom’s team, had asked the bartender at Il Fornaio if she knew of any French restaurants in the area and the bartender told her that the only place she could think of was Cheval Blanc. My mom’s best friend, who speaks fluent French, immediately said “Cheval Blanc means white horse! That’s the place!” and they took off for the restaurant. At Cheval Blanc we were required to obtain a “serviette”, aka a “napkin”.

Both my team and my mom’s team spent quite a bit of time at this restaurant and ordered a round of drinks and relaxed since we were so far ahead of all of the other groups. And amazingly enough, my mom’s team happened to meet an actor while at Cheval Blanc and they got his autograph for an extra 50 points! He wasn’t anyone famous, but he did have his own IMDB page, so he counted as a “star”.

Clue Number 3 –

You can get a roll

In California’s 91105.

This filming location

You may not recognize.

You won’t need a fork,

But two pieces of wood

To experience

Lindsay’s favorite hood.

The answer to Clue Number 3 was, of course, Maikobe Japanese Restaurant – aka the former Ruby’s Diner which stood in for the Peach Pit on my favorite show of all time Beverly Hills, 90210. For anyone who knew anything about me or anything about the city of Pasadena for that matter, this clue was a no-brainer. In an unfortunate twist of bad luck, though, Maikobe had unexpectedly closed its doors just a few days before our rehearsal dinner, so when we showed up there for the scavenger hunt, we could not go inside to obtain our “two pieces of wood”, aka a set of chop sticks. Mike immediately started looking around for other sushi restaurants in the area and noticed one directly across the street from Maikobe (perhaps this is why the place went out of business! Winking smile ) and ran right on over to grab some chopsticks. BUT, amazingly enough, my mom’s team had happened to grab a set of chop sticks at Sushi Roku near Il Fornaio earlier during the hunt (they had gone in to collect matchbooks for extra points and the hostess had, for whatever reason, also given them chopsticks!), so as soon as her team realized Maikobe was closed, they immediately started running to the last stop on the hunt and ended up coming in first place! So, yes, even though Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I were on the same team, we LOST the scavenger hunt!!!!! Unbelievable!!!! But at least now you can see where I get my stalking skills from! In our family, the apple definitely does not fall far from the tree! On a side note – you can see a great picture of what Maikobe looked like back when it was Ruby’s Diner here.

Clue Number 4 –

At this Latin lounge with a fitting name

Their life together they can star living

Before their honeymoon, as husband and dame.

Ask for this in your drink-o.

Tie it in a knot with your tongue

To get an extra cinco.

The solution to Clue Number 4 was Vive Lounge, where fave movie A Lot Like Love was filmed. At the time the movie was filmed, the place was a Chinese-Malaysian fusion restaurant named Nonya, but that eatery closed down back in 2006 whereupon Vive moved in. Amazingly enough, very little of the décor was changed upon the transition and the restaurant still looked almost exactly the same as it did in the movie. Because there is only one Latin-themed lounge in Pasadena, my mom and her team were easily able to figure out what location the final clue was referring to. Especially once they realized that “vive” translates to “live” in Spanish. For winning the hunt, each member of my mom’s team was awarded with a bag of microwave popcorn and a pass for a free movie at any AMC Theatre. So incredibly cool! All in the all, the scavenger hunt turned out FABULOUS and all of our guests, even those who seriously lagged behind, absolutely LOVED it. It was the perfect end to a perfect evening. On a sad side note, though – the GC and I walked by Vive this past Friday night and discovered that it had closed it doors! I can only hope that the new owners also choose to keep the original Nonya’s décor so that all of us stalkers can still appreciate it.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Natalie Drees can create customized scavenger hunts for parties and corporate events based upon any and all sorts of themes. You can contact her via her event planning website Pop Planning. Il Fornaio, from What Women Want, is located at 24 West Union Street in Old Town Pasadena. You can visit Il Fornaio’s website here. Cheval Blanc Bistro, from Father of the Bride, is located at 41 South De Lacey Avenue, also in Old Town Pasadena. You can visit the Cheval Blanc website here. The former Maikobe restaurant, aka the Peach Pit from Beverly Hills, 90210, is located at 45 South Fair Oaks Avenue in Pasadena, but is currently vacant. Vive Lounge, the former Nonya restaurant from A Lot Like Love, is located at 61 North Raymond Avenue in Pasadena, but is also currently vacant. You can visit the former Vive Lounge website here.

October 27, 2010September 29, 2017

Mountain View Cemetery from “The Office”

Since my favorite holiday, Halloween, is fast approaching, I thought it would only be appropriate to devote the next few blog posts to some filming locations of a spookier nature. So, this past Sunday morning, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, the Grim Cheaper, and I went on a joint stalking venture up to Altadena to stalk Mountain View Cemetery which appeared in the Season 4 episode of The Office titled “The Chair Model”, among countless other productions. I first found out about this locale from my parents’ neighbor, Julie, who owns The Coffee Gallery in Altadena – a location which was also used in “The Chair Model” episode and which I blogged about this past July. According to Julie, while scouting locations for the “Chair Model” episode, location managers sought out a coffee shop that was in close proximity to Mountain View Cemetery where they were also shooting scenes, which is how they came to use her cafe. Like the old saying goes, it’s all about location, location, location. 😉 Anyway, once Julie told me about the place, I started doing some research on it and discovered that Mountain View Cemetery has been featured in hundreds upon hundreds of productions over the years. Apparently, the 60-acre cemetery is used for filming an average of 150 days out of EACH AND EVERY year, which is absolutely incredible to me! Upon finding out that fact, I promptly informed both Mike and the GC that Mountain View Cemetery was the ONLY place I wanted to be buried. Spending my hereafter at a site that is in use as a filming location almost half of each year sounds like absolute heaven to me (pun intended). Mike jokingly said that if I did end up being buried there, my tombstone should read, “Lindsay Blake, from IAMNOTASTALKER –Still Stalking Filming Sites From Beyond the Grave”. 🙂

Mountain View Cemetery, which is one of the oldest cemeteries in the San Gabriel Valley, was first established in 1882 when a man named Levi W. Giddings designated a plot of his family’s land to be used as a site for burials for the citizens of Pasadena. His descendants still own and operate the cemetery to this day, over 128 years later. Mountain View, which as the name implies does boast picturesque views of the San Gabriel Mountains, is an absolutely enormous and quite beautiful property, with sprawling lawns, stately trees from all over the world, an art collection, two chapels, and two mausoleums. Besides being a filming location, Mountain View is also the final resting place of several notables, including actor George Reeves, who played TV’s original Superman in the 1950s television series of the same name. George is entombed in the cemetery’s Pasadena Mausoleum. Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine Lowe, one of the original founders of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and builder of the Mount Lowe Railway, is also buried at Mountain View, in the cemetery’s Royal Oak’s section.

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The yet-to-be released show Franklin & Bash was setting up to do some filming while we were stalking the cemetery on Sunday, and as you can see in the above photographs, had fake tombstones, floodlights, a generator, and a mock funeral assembled, which was very cool to see.

There was also a fake crypt set up on the property, which none of us actually realized was a fake . . .

. . . until we got around to the back of it and saw the prop door. So, of course, I just had to get inside of it to snap a quick picture. 🙂 I am not sure if the fake crypt was a prop for Franklin & Bash or for Wicked Literature: A Halloween Theatre Festival – a Halloween-themed live theatre event which is running at the cemetery now through the end of October. But being that Franklin & Bash is a series about a law firm, I am going to go out on a limb and guess that the crypt was set up for the Wicked Literature show.

In “The Chair Model” episode of The Office, Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell) falls in love with a chair model whom he sees in an office supply catalog. He sends Dwight Schrute (aka Rainn Wilson) on a recognizance mission to track down the model and is crushed when he learns that she was recently killed in a car accident. Dwight and Michael later visit the cemetery where she is buried in order to pay their respects. While there, they break into a rousing rendition of the song “American Pie”.

While stalking Mountain View on Sunday, I was absolutely dying to find the exact spot where The Office had been filmed. Unfortunately though, I was unable to figure it out at the time. It wasn’t until after I got home and re-watched “The Chair Model” episode that I was able to discern the correct location. So, bright and early yesterday morning, I dragged my dad out to re-stalk the place so that I could get some photos of the spot where Michael and Dwight had mourned, ahem, sang. That spot can be found in the northeastern section of the cemetery.

In the Season 1 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “There Won’t Be Trumpets”, Mountain View was the site of Mama Solis’ (aka Lupe Ontiveros’) funeral. In the scene filmed at the cemetery, Gaby Solis (aka Eva Longoria Parker) flies into a rage after discovering that her destitute husband Carlos (aka Ricardo Antonio Chavira) has purchased a large crypt for his dead mother. It was during the filming of that scene that Eva Longoria Parker accidentally (and hilariously) got the heel of her stiletto stuck in the cemetery’s grass. Some paparazzi who were on hand managed to snap pictures of the event and those pictures later made their way onto the pages of US Magazine, but unfortunately I cannot find copies of those photographs anywhere online.

While watching the “There Won’t Be Trumpets” episode, I was convinced that Mama Solis’ crypt had been a prop put into place for the filming. As I discovered yesterday morning, though, her burial site is an actual crypt belonging to the Buckley family. So darn cool! I would like to let it be known here and now that, upon my death, filmmakers have my permission to use whatever it is I end up being buried in – whether it be a crypt, a mausoleum, or a simple grave – whenever and in as many productions as they so desire! 😉

The cemetery was also used in the Season 8 episode of Seinfeld titled “The Foundation” as the final resting place of Susan Ross (aka Heidi Swedberg), George Costanza’s (aka Jason Alexander’s) former fiancé, who died after ingesting toxic glue while licking the envelopes of their wedding invitations.

Mountain View also appeared in the Season 11 episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation titled “Shock Waves” as the site of the funeral of Officer Franklin Clark (aka Reggie Von Watkins), during which a bomb explodes. Fave website Altadenablog was on hand during the filming of that episode and took some great photographs of the crew setting up the extensive rigging for the explosion scene.

The cemetery also popped up in the pilot episode of the HBO series Six Feet Under as the site of the funeral of Nathaniel Fisher (aka Richard Jenkins).

The cemetery was also used in Ozzy Osbourne’s video for his 2010 song “Life Won’t Wait” . . .

. . . which you can watch by clicking above.

Ironically enough, after visiting the cemetery, I had a feeling that it might have been the very cemetery used in fave movie A Lot Like Love, so after I got home I re-watched the flick and noticed the large, open-air grave-marker located in the background behind Oliver Martin (aka Ashton Kutcher) in the scene pictured above.

I could also just make out the last name “Holmes” written on the marker. So, yesterday morning, while re-stalking the cemetery with my dad, I walked around to see if I could spot that open air crypt.

And, amazingly enough, I did! As it turns out, the filming of A Lot Like Love had taken place just due west of where The Office had filmed. The grave where Emily Friehl’s (aka Amanda Peet’s) mother was buried in the movie was a fake that was put into place solely for the filming. In real life, her grave is just empty space. Ironically enough, Ashton Kutcher returned to the cemetery once again this past May to film scenes for the yet-to-be released comedy No Strings, along with co-star Natalie Portman. You can check out some photographs of them filming here. The 2007 remake of the classic horror film Halloween was also filmed at Mountain View Cemetery.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Mountain View Cemetery is located at 2400 North Fair Oaks Avenue in Altadena. The area which appeared in The Office is in the northeastern portion of the cemetery and is denoted with a pink circle and a pink “X” in the above aerial views. A Lot Like Love filmed just due west of where The Office was filmed in the area of the cemetery numbered 4474, which is denoted with a purple circle in the above aerial views. Desperate Housewives was filmed in front of the Buckley crypt, which is located in the section of the cemetery numbered 4386, directly across from the Vista Del Monte mausoleum, which is denoted with a blue circle and a blue arrow in the above aerial views.

February 10, 2010June 16, 2011

Cole’s Restaurant from “A Lot Like Love”

This past weekend I dragged my fiancé out to re-stalk Cole’s Restaurant, a location that I originally blogged about way back in May of 2008. I first learned about the old time watering hole while watching the DVD commentary for fave movie A Lot Like Love, during which one of the film’s directors mentions that the New York bar scene featured at the beginning of the flick wasn’t actually filmed on the East Coast at all, but at a historic little bar in Downtown Los Angeles named Cole’s. After doing a bit of online research I discovered that COUNTLESS movies had actually been filmed on location at the historic bar, so I, of course, immediately dragged my fiancé right out to stalk the place. Sadly, though, upon arriving we were greeted by a sign announcing that the restaurant was closed for a massive renovation project. 🙁 And I have longed to stalk the place ever since. So, since we were in the area this past weekend, I begged my fiancé to make a little pit stop there and, since he was hungry at the time, he happily obliged. YAY!

Cole’s actually has a few other claims to fame besides being an oft-used filming location, including the fact that it is not only where the French Dip sandwich was first originated, but it is also the oldest continuously operating bar and restaurant in all of Los Angeles.

Cole’s, which was originally known as Cole’s P.E. Buffet, was first opened on December 8, 1908 by an entrepreneur named Harry Cole in what was once the main terminal of the Pacific Electric Building. That very same year, Cole’s main chef, a resourceful young man named Jack Garlinghouse, dipped the bread of a roast beef sandwich in Au Jus sauce in order to soften it for a customer who suffered from sore gums, and, thus, the French Dip sandwich was born. Those sandwiches, and the restaurant itself, became extremely popular with the hundreds of thousands of commuters who traveled through the Pacific Electric Building terminal each day. Twenty-five years later, in 1933, Cole’s was still such a popular spot that on the day California nixed its ban on beer, the bar served up over 19,000 gallons of the stuff to its parched customers. Yes, you read that right – 19,000 GALLONS in ONE day! That same year, Harry Cole’s son, Rawland, who was a bit of an entrepreneur himself, decided to start cashing checks out of the restaurant’s back room and wound up giving out over $1,000,000 each month (and we’re talking 1930’s money!), which was a larger amount than any U.S. bank was giving out during that same time! Cole’s has also had a longtime celebrity following, attracting such notables as Mickey Cohen who was a regular there during the 70’s and even had his own booth.

In 2007, Cole’s was purchased by a Los Angeles area development company named 213 who subsequently began a year-long, $1.6 million restoration process on the historic restaurant, during which its 40-foot long mahogany bar, porcelain penny tile mosaic flooring, and antique Tiffany glass lamps were all brought back to their original glory. The 213 company, which is headed by C.E.O. Cedd Moses, even added a “secret” bar in what was formerly Cole’s storage room. That secret bar is named “The Varnish” and it is so hidden, in fact, that I had absolutely no idea it was there until I read about it online after I got home. 🙁 For their restoration efforts of the legendary restaurant, 213 was awarded the Los Angeles Conservancy’s Preservation Award.

Cole’s specialty is, of course, its signature hand-carved, made-to-order French Dip sandwich which was originated on the premises one hundred and two years ago. There’s actually another L.A. area restaurant named Phillipe’s also laying claim to that exact same feat and the dispute between the two establishments is almost as old as the sandwich itself. But being that in 1974 the City of Los Angeles designated Cole’s a Historical Landmark Site and a State Point of Historical Interest not only due to its significant location, but also to its culinary invention, I think it’s safe to say that Cole’s has won that battle. 🙂 Cole’s French Dips can be constructed out of a variety of meats, including lamb, pastrami, turkey, and the typical roast beef. They can also be adorned with extra meat, Swiss, cheddar, goat, or blue cheeses, and an “atomic pickle spear”. I opted for a turkey French dip, sans the cheese and pickle, and I have to say it was absolutely A-MA-ZING! The meat truly was hand-carved, right-off-the-turkey-type turkey and I loved every last bite of it. What I loved more, though, was the historic aura of the place. It was incredible to be sitting there, dining on my French dip, thinking about the fact that the very sandwich I was now eating had actually been created on the premises over a century ago. Yes, I’ll take my meal with a side of history, please. 😉 I think it goes without saying that I ABSOLUTELY LOVED Cole’s and I honestly can’t recommend stalking the place enough!

In A Lot Like Love, Cole’s stood in for the New York bar where Oliver (aka Ashton Kutcher) and Emily (aka Amanda Peet) make a $50 bet that he won’t be a successful married businessman in six years time.

And I, of course, just had to eat lunch while sitting in the same spot where Ashton and Amanda sat in the flick. 🙂

The side booth area that is visible to the left of Ashton in the above screen capture is no longer a part of Cole’s. It was closed off during the restaurant’s recent remodel and is now a separately owned “secret” bar known as the Association. Yes, there are two secret bars located on the Cole’s premises!

The Association’s unmarked front door is pictured above.

In Jumpin’ Jack Flash – one of my all-time favorite movies EVER – Cole’s once again stood in for a New York bar, this time as the place where Terri Dolittle (aka Whoopi Goldberg) gets kidnapped by a man in a tow truck while making a telephone call from a public phone booth.

It is during this scene that Whoopi utters the infamous line “I am little black woman in a big silver box!” LOL

Towards the end of the movie, Whoopi once again runs by the restaurant on her way back to her office after escaping from the police. Cole’s is also talked about throughout the flick as the place where Whoopi and her pals hang out after work. Ironically enough, back before my very first trip to the Big Apple, I spent HOURS using Google Street View to search New York for this location. It wasn’t until years later, when I stalked Cole’s the first time after watching A Lot Like Love, that realized my mistake. I can’t believe I wasted so much time scouring New York for this location, when the whole time it was literally right in my own backyard! 😉

In Rumor Has It, Cole’s stands in for the San Francisco bar named the Fillmore Pub, where Kevin Costner and my girl Jen Aniston share a dance. Ironically enough, before I knew about Cole’s, I actually spent quite a bit of time searching the San Francisco area for this spot! Which means – you guessed it! – that I not only wasted countless hours searching for this location – not realizing it was the same place featured in Jumpin’ Jack Flash – in New York, but in San Francisco, too. LOL Man, I’m such a blonde sometimes!

The scene where Kevin and Jen kiss outside of the ladies’ room after their dance was really filmed in the bathroom area of Cole’s, as well.

The exterior of the restaurant was also used in the filming of the scene, although they changed the signage to read “Fillmore Pub”. As you can see in the above photograph (which was taken during my first Cole’s stalk) and screen capture, though, the signage used in the movie is an exact match to Cole’s real life signage. Love it!

In Forrest Gump, Cole’s yet again stood in for a New York watering hole. It was used as the spot where Forrest and Lieutenant Dan spend New Year’s Eve of 1971. Sadly, though, not much of the bar is visible in that scene.

On a side note – Located directly across the street from Cole’s is a little place named J &J Sandwich Shop, which is the restaurant which stood in for the Night Owl Cafe in fave movie L.A. Confidential.

And located directly above Cole’s is the ninth floor window from which Bud White (aka Russell Crowe) hung D.A. Ellis Loew (aka Ron Rifkin) in the same movie.

Cole’s has also appeared in an episode of The X-Files, in numerous episodes of both Mad Men and NYPD Blue, and it flashed by very briefly in the 1991 movie Guilty By Suspicion. And, according to legend, the Terminal Bar from 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which was in actuality just a set, was based on Cole’s.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Cole’s is located at 118 East Sixth Street in Downtown Los Angeles. You can visit their website here.