Ellen Pompeo – IAMNOTASTALKER

March 21, 2011March 19, 2011

The Quality Café

While stalking in Downtown Los Angeles a couple of weekends ago, the Grim Cheaper and I found ourselves hungry so I suggested grabbing some lunch at the Quality Café on West 7th Street – a diner that has appeared in countless productions over the years. When we showed up to stalk the place, though, we were shocked to discover that it was completely boarded up. I was even further shocked to discover, once I returned home, that, aside from some brief blurbs about its filming history, I could not seem to find any information about the place online. I was extremely curious if the cafe had ever been an actual working restaurant or if it had only ever existed as a film set. So I contacted fellow stalker Harry Medved, author of one of my very favorite stalking tomes – Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors – who was nice enough to give me the scoop on the former greasy spoon. As it turns out, the Quality Café was indeed a real life restaurant at one point time. It closed its doors a few years back and is now used solely for filming, although word on the street is that the place might re-open as an eatery once again in the near future.

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Being that it is completely boarded up and there is not a whole lot to see while there, the Quality Café does not make for a great stalking venue, but because it has such an incredibly vast filming history, I figured it was worthy of a blog post.

In Catch Me If You Can, it is while dining at the Quality Café that a waiter clues Carl Hanratty (aka Tom Hanks) into the fact that Barry Allen, the alias Frank Abagnale Jr. (aka Leonardo DiCaprio) has been using, is the actual name of the comic book character “The Flash”.

In 1995’s Se7en, Tracy Mills (aka Gwyneth Paltrow) confesses to Detective Lt. William Somerset (aka Morgan Freeman) that she is pregnant with Detective David Mills’ (aka Brad Pitt’s) baby over a cup of coffee at the Quality Café.

Morgan Freeman returned to the Quality Café in 2004 to film the scene from Million Dollar Baby in which his character, Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris, takes Maggie Fitzgerald (aka Hilary Swank) out to celebrate her birthday.

In Gone in Sixty Seconds, the Quality Café is the diner where Helen Raines (aka Grace Zabriskie), the mother of Memphis (aka Nicolas Cage) and Kip Raines (aka Giovanni Ribisi), works.

In Training Day, Detective Alonzo Harris (aka Denzel Washington) and Jake Hoyt (aka Ethan Hawke) meet up at the café on their first day of working together.

In Old School, Mitch Martin (aka Luke Wilson) takes Nicole (aka Ellen Pompeo) to the Quality Café and tries to convince her that he is actually a nice guy.

In Mr. and Mrs. Smith, John Smith (aka Brad Pitt) and Eddie (aka Vince Vaughn) meet up at the Quality Café to discuss the failed assassination attempt of Benjamin Danz (aka Adam Brody).

In 2001’s Ghost World, Enid (aka Thora Birch) and Rebecca (aka a very young Scarlett Johansson) spy on some supposed Satanists while dining at the Quality Café.

In 2009’s The Stepfather, the Quality Café is where David Harris (aka Dylan Walsh) asks Michael Harding (aka Penn Badgley) to be his best man.

In Sex and Death 101, the Quality Café is where Death Nell (aka Winona Ryder) tells Roderick Blank (aka Simon Baker) her life story.

In 2008’s The Midnight Meat Train, the Quality Café is where Leon’s (aka Bradley Cooper’s) wife, Maya (aka Leslie Bibb), works.

In 1993’s What’s Love Got To Do With It, the Quality Café is where Ike Turner (aka Laurence Fishburne) takes Anna Mae Bullock (aka Angela Bassett) out to dinner for the first time.

The Quality Café was the site of a triple murder in the Season One episode of CSI: New York titled “Outside Man”.

In the Season One episode of Mad Men titled “5G”, the Quality Café stood in for the Delight Café where Don Draper (aka Jon Hamm) met up with his half-brother, Adam Whitman (aka Jay Paulson), whom he had been estranged from for years.

Harry Medved also let me know that, according to Marty Cummins, the key assistant location manager for 500 Days of Summer, the Quality Café is where Summer (aka Zooey Deschanel) broke up with Tom (aka Joseph Gordon-Levitt) at the beginning of the flick.

And while the exterior of the restaurant appeared as a local hangout in 2004’s You Got Served . . .

. . . as you can see in the above screen captures, a different restaurant was used for the interior filming.

EMBED-The Quality Cafe in Movies Mash-Up – Watch more free videos

You can watch a fabulous compilation from the Screen Junkies website of several different movies that have been filmed at the café by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to Harry Medved for filling me in on the restaurant’s history.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Quality Café is located at 1238 West 7th Street in Downtown Los Angeles. The restaurant is currently closed to the public and is only available for film shoots, so I can’t say that I’d really recommend stalking it as there is just not a whole lot to see.

January 18, 2011January 17, 2011

72 North – The Real Life Emerald City Bar from “Grey’s Anatomy”

While Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I were watching True Blood being filmed in Pasadena last Wednesday night, we got to talking with the owner of The Old Towne Pub about all of the filming that has taken place in the area over the years. The owner was extremely knowledgeable and clued us in to a lot of locations that neither of us had previously known about, the most exciting of which for me was the downstairs bar of the former McMurphy’s Restaurant & Tavern, now 72 North, which is used as the supposed Seattle-area Emerald City Bar where all of the Seattle Grace interns hang out each week on the hit television series Grey’s Anatomy. I was EXTREMELY interested in stalking McMurphy’s upon finding out that after filming the Season 2 episode of the series titled “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head” on location there, producers had an exact replica of the place rebuilt at ABC Prospect Studios, where Grey’s Anatomy is lensed, that they then used for filming each and every week, which I thought was just about the coolest thing ever! Even though I have never watched Grey’s Anatomy, finding that out was like discovering that Central Perk from Friends was modeled after a real life coffee shop that one could actually visit! So incredibly cool! Sadly, McMurphy’s Restaurant and Tavern closed its doors a few years ago and the new owners completely gutted and remodeled the place, renamed it Dullahans, and it subsequently closed down yet again just a short while later. It was then sold once again to new owners and renamed 72 North. Miraculously though, through all of the changes of ownership and the extensive remodel, the downstairs bar area was left untouched and still looks pretty much exactly the same today as it did when Grey’s Anatomy first filmed there back in 2005. YAY! So, this past Friday night I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place.

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Ever since Emerald City Bar, or Joe’s Bar as it is also sometimes referred to on Grey’s Anatomy, appeared in the “Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head” episode, it has been featured almost weekly on the series as the regular hangout of Meredith Grey (aka Ellen Pompeo), Christina Yang (aka Sandra Oh), Derek Shepherd (aka Patrick Dempsey), and the rest of the Seattle Grace gang. The above screen captures were taken from the “Raindrops” episode, during which filming took place at the actual downstairs bar area of McMurphy’s Restaurant & Tavern.

The above screen captures were taken from later episodes of the series, during which filming took place at the studio-built replica of the bar.

The downstairs bar area at 72 North is currently only used for special events and private parties, but one of the super-friendly bartenders offered to open it up for me so that I could snap a few pictures of the place. And even though Bartender Joe’s Seattle-inspired decorations were of course no longer in place, the bar is still very recognizable from the series. So incredibly cool!

Unfortunately, I did not get a great picture of the bar’s front doors while I was stalking the place, but you can kind of see them in the above photograph.

72 North’s downstairs room can actually be reached via an exterior staircase much like it was portrayed on Grey’s Anatomy.

72 North has a kind of sports/dive bar-type atmosphere, but, let me tell you, the food they serve there is nothing short of FABULOUS! This is not your ordinary bar food in any way, shape, or form! The chicken was cooked to absolute perfection and, as I have mentioned numerous times before, I am extremely picky about my chicken. The GC and I ordered up a vegetable plate while we were there and not only was it amazing, but it was also absolutely HUGE! It was literally the size of a platter one would serve at a party! And the cost of that vegetable dish? Because it was happy hour, the tray was only $3! I am not kidding! Our entire meal came to $27 and we each had a cocktail! Needless to say, the GC was absolutely THRILLED upon receiving the check and told me that we could go back to stalk the place anytime I wanted. Winking smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: 72 North, aka the real life Emerald City Bar or Joe’s Bar from Grey’s Anatomy, is located at 72 North Fair Oaks Avenue in Old Town Pasadena. The downstairs bar is the area that is shown on the series. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

October 6, 2010October 5, 2010

The “Grey’s Anatomy” House

Another location that my good friend and fellow stalker Kerry took me to stalk while I was visiting the Pacific Northwest earlier this year was the Seattle-area home owned by Meredith Grey (aka Ellen Pompeo) on the long-running television series Grey’s Anatomy. I’ve only actually ever seen one episode of the show – the Season 2 episode titled “Enough is Enough” in which my friend Lukas Behnken was a guest star – but since we were in the area and since Kerry knew the address, I figured I might as well stalk the place. I have heard such amazing things about the series over the years, though, that I really do think I need to start tuning in. Especially since the main house used in the series is such a cool one! I was actually quite shocked to discover that the Grey’s residence was located in Seattle, as the show is taped for the most part right here in Los Angeles – at both Prospect Studios in Los Feliz and the Veterans Administration Sepulveda Ambulatory Care Center in North Hills. But apparently, the cast and crew make a few treks each year up to the Seattle-area to shoot some exterior and establishing shots, including all of the shots of Meredith’s home.

On the show, the house originally belonged to Meredith’s mother and while she announced in the pilot episode that she was planning on selling it, she later decides to keep it and live in it with her fellow Seattle Grace Hospital interns Izzie Stevens (aka Katherine Heigl) and George O’Malley (aka T.R. Knight). The home has been featured regularly in all six seasons of the series.

The address of the home on the series is said to be 613 Harper Lane, but in reality it is located in the Queen Anne Hill neighborhood of Seattle on Comstock Street. The home, which was originally built in 1905 and according to fave website Zillow is currently worth about $1.2 million, boasts 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, and 2,740 square feet of living space.

On a side note – I apologize for the short blog posts I’ve been publishing as of late. My parent’s recent, and what has been on-going, move – which has taken place over the past four weekends and has involved packing up a 2,000 square foot residence, staging that residence for sale, moving my parents temporarily into their friends’ currently vacant home, putting 1/3 of their possessions into a storage facility, and the other 2/3’s into two portable POD moving containers – has really taken it out of me. And it’s definitely been a group effort, too. Mike, from MovieShotsLA, even pitched in to help us out! Not many people I know would be willing to help their friends move, let alone their friend’s parents, but that’s just the kind of guy Mike is – and it is why he is one of my very best friends! Anyway, escrow on my parent’s former house closes TODAY (halleluiah!), so the move is finally over – for the time being at least – and I can now get back to my normal life, normal routine, and normal blogging. After a nice hot bubble bath and nice, tall glass of champagne, that is! Thanks for bearing with me over the past few weeks, my fellow stalkers!

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Kerry for taking me to this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Grey’s Anatomy house is located at 303 Comstock Street in Seattle, Washington.