Tag: famous places

Little Dom’s Restaurant from “90210”

This past Saturday night, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to Los Feliz to stalk Little Dom’s – an Italian eatery owned by Warner Ebbink and Brandon Boudet of the Eat Heavy Restaurant Group, the very same team that was responsible for founding the 101 Coffee Shop that I blogged about yesterday. The GC and I had actually breakfasted at the Los Feliz-area establishment once before a couple of years ago, but at the time I had no idea the place was a filming location or a celebrity hotspot, so I, unfortunately, did not take any photographs while there. Well, imagine my surprise when just a few months later the restaurant was featured in a Season 2 episode of fave show 90210. I recognized the place immediately, and, let me tell you, just about fell out of my chair. And then this past September, I just about had a heart attack when the eatery appeared on 90210 yet again. And then, last week, when I came across these November 4th paparazzi photos of the cast of Glee – including Lea Michele, Dianna Agron, Cory Monteith, Amber Riley, Harry Shum Jr., Kevin McHale, Jenna Ushkowitz, Naya Rivera, and Chord Overstreet – dining at the restaurant, I just about died and immediately informed the GC that Little Dom’s was where the two of us would be spending our upcoming Saturday night.

Little Dom’s first opened in January of 2008 on the corner of Hillhurst Avenue and Avocado Street in the heart of Downtown Los Feliz in the space that previously housed the French bistro La Belle Epoque. Warner Ebbink, who so ingeniously designed the 101 Coffee Shop interior, completely gutted the former Epoque property and created the Manhattan-esque decor of his new Italian eatery from scratch. The interior designer/restaurateur searched far and wide, and I mean that literally, for the items that now make up his eclectic establishment. He purchased and then transported the wooden bar, which dates back to the 1930’s, from a former saloon in Eaton, Pennsylvania; he found the authentic leaded-glass windows, which now make up some of the restaurant’s interior walls, at an about-to-be-demolished building in New York City, and the picture of Yosemite National Park which hangs above the bar area was requisitioned from none other than Warner Brothers Studios. As the Eater website so aptly stated in their January 2008 review of the restaurant, “Warner Ebbink is an ace at making an entirely new space feel like it’s been there forever.” I couldn’t agree more! Sitting at the antique bar and looking around at the dimly-lit, tin-ceilinged space, I found it very hard to believe that the place had not been around during the heyday of Hollywood catering to members of the Rat Pack.

Besides the spectacular ambiance, Little Dom’s also serves up some fabulous food! I absolutely gorged myself on the Brussels Sprouts with Shaved Parmesan side dish and the Truffled Chicken Salad with Arugula Sandwich entrée – both of which were divine! And I just about died from excitement when I saw that they featured my very favorite dessert, Affogato – vanilla gelato with a shot of espresso (pictured above) – on the menu! I never actually knew that my favorite dessert had a name, nor had I ever actually seen it featured on a restaurant menu before, but I have been ordering a scoop of vanilla ice cream with a shot of espresso on the side as dessert for just about as long as I can remember. So, the fact that Little Dom’s had it named on their menu was simply amazing to me! The restaurant also breaks down their wine list into three sections – ”Tried and True”, “Your New Best Friend”, and “Go Out on a Limb” – which I thought was just about the cutest thing ever. The eatery’s prices were also extremely, extremely reasonable, which, needless to say, the Grim Cheaper was thrilled about. We both absolutely LOVED the place and cannot wait to go back there for another stalking/culinary adventure.

It should come as no surprise that, in the three short years that it has been in operation, Little Dom’s has become a big time celebrity hot spot. Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there recently include Drew Barrymore, Jason Segel, Katherine Heigl, Josh Kelly, Rachel Bilson, Joe Jonas, Pixie Lott, Conan O’Brien, Ryan Reynolds, Megan Fox, Kate Walsh, Zachary Quinto, Michelle Williams, Spike Jonze, Vince Vaughn, Gisele Bundchen, Ron Livingston and, as I mentioned above, most of the cast of Glee. And while the GC and I, unfortunately, did not spot anyone famous on this most recent trip to the restaurant, we did see actor Michael Cera, who played Paulie Bleeker in the 2007 movie Juno, during our first visit there.

And the place is also a filming location! Little Dom’s appeared in the Season 2 episode of 90210 titled “Women’s Intuition”, in the scene in which Debbie Wilson (aka Lori Loughlin) confronts Sasha (aka Mekia Cox) about what she suspects is her fake pregnancy. That scene was filmed in the booth located closest to the restaurant’s front door.

Little Dom’s was also used in the Season 3 episode of 90210 titled “2021 Vision”, in the scene in which Mr. Cannon (aka Hal Ozsan) “accidentally” bumps into Erin Silver (aka Jessica Stroup).

In the scene, Silver sat in the booth located third in from the restaurant’s front door. That particular booth was, sadly, occupied while I was stalking the place, so I had to settle for taking a photograph in the one directly next to it.

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Silver’s Vespa was parked just outside of the restaurant, on Avocado Street, in the scene. And I just have to say here that I am absolutely hooked on 90210 this year. The series started getting pretty good last season, but I think it is just now finally beginning to hit its stride and I absolutely love it, love it, love it. Especially the brewing romance between Liam Court (aka my latest celebrity crush Matt Lanter) and Annie Wilson (aka Shenae Grimes). Those two are SO darn cute together!!!

Little Dom’s also appeared in the 2010 movie The Kids Are All Right, in the scene in which Nic (aka Annette Bening) and Jules (aka Julianne Moore) discuss the fact that their children’s biological father Paul (aka Mark Ruffalo) is now a part of their lives.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Little Dom’s restaurant from 90210 is located at 2128 Hillhurst Avenue in Los Feliz. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

November 16, 2010
The 101 Coffee Shop from “Swingers”

One location that I have wanted to stalk ever since moving to Los Angeles over a decade ago, but didn’t because there were numerous erroneous reports floating around online which stated that the place had since closed down, was the 101 Coffee Shop which appeared in the 1996 movie Swingers. It wasn’t until Mike, from MovieShotsLA, pointed out the restaurant to me while driving by it after we finished our tour of Paramount Studios back in September that I realized the location was, indeed, still open for business. I added the cafe to the top of my “To Stalk” list that very day and when fellow stalkers Lavonna, Beth, Debbie, and Connie came out from Ohio for a Hollywood stalking trip a few weeks later, we all hit the place up for a quick bite to eat.

Apparently, there is quite a bit of confusion surrounding this particular location, so I thought I’d put all the mystery to rest with today’s post. The diner, which is located on the first floor of the Best Western Hollywood Hills Hotel, originally opened in the 1930’s and was named the “Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop”. In 1994, the restaurant, which was faltering at the time, was taken over by a French chef named Susan Fine Moore and her husband, Michael, who revamped the property’s interior and updated its menu to include an array of standard comfort foods along with some Mexican dishes. Of the new menu, which vacillated greatly from L.A.’s typical low-fat fare, Fine said, “We kind of pride ourselves on being an oasis from all that craziness. There’s a new diet, a new fad every week, but actually people seem a little bit less obsessed than they used to be about diets. Otherwise we wouldn’t be so busy. Generation X is lovely – they’ll eat anything. And the older generation is figuring, I suppose, who wants to live to 108 if you can’t put butter on your potato?” Love it! The Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop really started to take off under the helm of Susan and Michael and it was at that point that the place, thanks to its high-quality food and laid-back attitude, started attracting celebrities. A few stars who were known to frequent the diner include Brad Pitt, my girl Jen Aniston, Sandra Bullock, Gwyneth Paltrow, Johnny Depp, Andy Garcia, Minnie Driver, Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich, and Kevin Spacey. After losing their lease in July of 2001, Susan and Michael moved their restaurant two miles east to a new location at 1745 North Vermont Avenue, but the place, sadly, closed down shortly thereafter. In the meantime the former Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop space was leased to new owners – Warner Ebbink and Brandon Boudet of the Eat Heavy Restaurant Group – who opened a new eatery in its place.

That new restaurant is named the 101 Coffee Shop and, let me tell you, it is a VERY cool place. Ebbink, who has a passion for architecture as well as food, redesigned the property’s interior himself, modeling it after the old-time cafes of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Boudet serves as the head chef and, under his tutelage, the eatery still serves up high-quality comfort food, including macaroni and cheese, meatloaf and gravy, and tuna melts. For the foodies in your group, more highbrow offerings, like the Grilled Tandoori Salmon Sandwich, the Kale “Greek” Salad, and the Grilled Albacore Tuna Burger, are also on the menu. And, despite the change in ownership, the restaurant is still a big time celebrity hotspot. Fellow stalker Chas ran into both Nicolas Cage and Matt LeBlanc on two separate occasions while dining at the cafe. So, while the Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop is no longer in operation, the 101 Coffee Shop is alive and well, and, despite the remodel, is still very recognizable from Swingers.

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Then out-of-work actors Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau actually wrote the screenplay for Swingers over several meals at the Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop. (The restaurant seems to be something of a lucky charm for writers as the pilot episode of the extremely successful CBS comedy series Everybody Loves Raymond was also penned in one of the cafe’s back rooms.) According to a November 1998 New York Times article, Favreau and his good friend Vaughn used to frequent the diner regularly. Of the restaurant, Favreau said, “It was like a family atmosphere. We didn’t have a lot of money, and I lived in a tiny apartment up the block. I loved the people who ran the place, who made you feel like a big shot, even if you weren’t. Very good portions – you never left hungry.” Once the screenplay was sold, Favreau decided to use the restaurant as a filming location for no less than three scenes in the movie! The Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop first appears in the opening scene in which Mike (aka Favreau) talks to Rob (aka Sex and the City’s Ron Livingston) about how to get his girlfriend back.

That scene was filmed in the second booth to the left of the restaurant’s main door, which, despite the remodel, still looks very much the same today as it did in the movie.

The scene in which Trent (aka Vince Vaughn) tells Mike that he is “all growns up” was also filmed at the cafe. The booth where that scene was filmed is, sadly, no longer there. It looks as if the restaurant also had some sort of a grocery section at the time the movie was filmed, but it no longer does today.

The movie’s ending scene, in which Trent thinks a fellow diner is making goo-goo eyes at him, also took place at the former Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop.

In more recent years the coffee shop stood in for Winkie’s, the diner where Lorelai (aka Lauren Graham), Rory (aka Alexis Bledel), and Emily Gilmore (aka Kelly Bishop) stopped to grab a bite to eat while on their way to North Carolina to attend Mia’s wedding in the Season 7 episode of Gilmore Girls titled “Gilmore Girls Only”.

Randomly enough, Gilmore Girls filmed in pretty much the exact same spot where Lavonna, Debbie, Connie, Beth, and I ate lunch! 🙂 So cool!

In the Season 1 episode of Entourage titled “Date Night”, Vincent Chase (aka Adrian Grenier), Johnny ‘Drama’ Chase (aka Kevin Dillon), Eric Murphy (aka Kevin Connolly), and Turtle (aka Jerry Ferrara) grab some breakfast at the cafe on the morning of Vince’s big movie premiere.

Some filming for that episode also took place outside of the coffee shop.

The Entourage boys returned to the cafe to film the Season 7 episode of the show titled “Buzzed”, in which Turtle’s credit card is rejected after he tries to pick up the gang’s lunch tab.

The coffee shop was also featured twice in the 2007 movie In the Land of Women. It was first seen in the opening scene in which Sofia Bunuel (aka Elena Anaya) breaks up with Carter Webb (aka Adam Brody).

And it was used in the ending scene in which Carter meets Janey (aka fave actress Ginnifer Goodwin).

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The 101 Coffee Shop, aka the former Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop from Swingers, is located at 6145 Franklin Avenue, on the first floor of the Best Western Hollywood Hills Hotel, in Hollywood. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

November 15, 2010
Lucky Baldwin’s British Pub and Cafe from “The Big Bang Theory”

In the recently-aired Season 4 episode of fave show The Big Bang Theory titled “The Irish Pub Formulation”, Sheldon Cooper (aka Jim Parsons) refers to an Old Town Pasadena-area restaurant named Lucky Baldwin’s Pub. Ironically enough, just a few days prior to watching that episode, fellow stalker John from Northern California had mentioned that very establishment to me in an email. While John was vacationing in Los Angeles earlier this summer, he had ventured out to Pasadena and stopped by both POP Champagne Bar, my very favorite restaurant, and Lucky Baldwin’s Pub and had written to me to let me know about his experiences there. Amazingly enough, I had never actually heard of Lucky Baldwin’s before receiving his email, but John said that the place had a good atmosphere so I made a mental note to check it out in the near future. Well, imagine my surprise when just a few days later I heard the place referenced on The Big Bang Theory! I am so incredibly thankful to John because had he not mentioned the bar in his email, I would have written the place off as a fictional locale that was created by the writers of the show. So, once I knew that it was, in fact, a real-life establishment, I just had to stalk the place.

Lucky Baldwin’s is an incredibly cool little bar tucked away on a side street of Old Town Pasadena. It is a low key, down-to-earth place that boasts an extensive menu of British pub favorites, including Bangers and Mash, Fish & Chips, and Pigs in a Blanket. Because I have always been the type of girl who prefers chicken strips to chicken marsala, a place like Lucky Baldwin’s is truly right up my alley. The only problem with chicken-strip-serving-type establishments, though, is that they tend to not feature champagne – my drink of choice – on their cocktail menu, but I am VERY happy to report that that was not the case at Lucky Baldwin’s! A bar that serves pub food AND champagne – that is simply music to my ears! Lucky Baldwin’s was first founded just over fourteen years ago, in July of 1996, by an Englishman named David Farnworth and his partner Peggy Simonian and was named after Elias Jackson “Lucky” Baldwin, the California businessman who founded Santa Anita Park in Arcadia and who owned the land that now makes up the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden. In 2005, Farnworth and Simonian opened a second restaurant named Lucky Baldwin’s Delirium Pub a few miles away in the sleepy little town of Sierra Madre. According to the Old Pasadena website, Lucky Baldwins is “truly Old Pasadena’s favorite secret hideaway” and I couldn’t agree with that statement more – the restaurant is definitely a secret. I’ve lived in Pasadena for over a decade now and had never even heard of the place! It is definitely going to be a frequent stomping ground for me and the Grim Cheaper in the future, though, because we absolutely loved the place.

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In “The Irish Pub Formulation” episode of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon discovers that Leonard Hofstadter (aka Johnny Galecki) has spent the night with their friend Raj Koothrappali’s (aka Kunal Nayyar’s) little sister, Priya (aka Aarti Mankad). To protect Leonard’s secret, Sheldon comes up with an “iron clad alibi” about that night which revolves around the fictional “fun-loving and morally-loose Miss Maggie Magarie”. Of Maggie, Sheldon says, “You met her at Pasadena’s most popular Irish watering hole, Lucky Baldwin’s, where Maggie spends her nights tending bar with a head full of curls and a heart full of dreams.” I think it is so amazingly cool that the writers of The Big Bang Theory, which is set in Pasadena, chose a real life locale to refer to in the episode. I love, love, love it when real life places are mentioned in movies and television shows.

They did get a couple of things wrong, though. In reality, Lucky Baldwin’s is British, not Irish, and the restaurant does not currently serve pickled eggs or whiskey (or any other hard alcohol), as Sheldon alludes to in the episode. But the Big Bang writers definitely did their homework on this one because, according to our waitress, the bar is a popular hangout for both Caltech and Jet Propulsion Laboratory employees. On the series, Leonard, Raj, and Sheldon all work at Caltech, while Howard Wolowitz (aka Simon Helberg) is employed by JPL. The Bob’s Big Boy in Toluca Lake, which was also mentioned in “The Irish Pub Formulation” episode of The Big Bang Theory, is also, in fact, a real life locale. And while it might seem a bit crazy that I stalked this location due to a mere mention on a TV show, as you can see in this Yelp review, I wasn’t the only one to do so!

You can watch the hilarious “alibi” scene by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker John for telling me about this location! 🙂

And a BIG shout out goes to fellow stalker Debbie who is celebrating a special birthday today! Happy Birthday Debbie!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Lucky Baldwin’s British Pub and Cafe, from The Big Bang Theory, is located at 17 South Raymond Avenue in Old Town Pasadena. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

November 12, 2010
Dr. Mott’s House From “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle”

Another The Hand That Rocks the Cradle location that I stalked while vacationing in the Pacific Northwest this past May was the ultra-modern abode which belonged to Dr. Victor Mott (aka John de Lancie) and his wife, Peyton Flanders (aka Rebecca De Mornay), in the 1992 thriller. Amazingly enough, I didn’t actually remember the Mott home from the one time I viewed the movie almost two decades ago, but my good friend and fellow stalker Kerry, who lives in Washington State, insisted I stalk the place while we were up there and drove me and the Grim Cheaper by it on our final day in Seattle. And thank goodness she did, too, because the dwelling is nothing short of spectacular! In fact, how it is possible that I didn’t remember it from the film is absolutely beyond me!

In real life, the Mott residence, which seems to have been constructed almost entirely out of windows, boasts 4 bedrooms, a whopping 6 bathrooms, and 3,750-square feet of living space. The home was actually built in 1991, the same year that The Hand That Rocks the Cradle was lensed, so my guess is that it was vacant at the time of filming which is how producers came to use it in the movie.

The Mott house is featured in quite a few scenes in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and, as you can see in the above screen captures, looks very much the same today as it did nineteen years ago when the movie was filmed. There have been a few subtle changes made to the residence over the years, of course, including the addition of a substantial amount of foliage around the front perimeter of the property, which wasn’t there at the time of the filming.

The residence’s front porch area has also been altered since The Hand That Rocks the Cradle was filmed and now features a blue-shingled overhang and brown wooden front doors, neither of which, in my never-to-be-humble-opinion, seem to fit in well with the rest of the abode. I much prefer the movie version of the front porch as to how it is currently designed.

It appears as if a window has also since been added to the rear portion of the home’s second story, as well. Other than those few changes, though, the property looks almost exactly the same in person as it appeared onscreen in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. Love it! And, although you can’t quite tell in the above photograph due to the crappy weather we were experiencing that day, the breathtaking views of Downtown Seattle and Puget Sound that were shown in the movie are the real life views that can be seen from the actual home. Sigh!

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The real life interior of the property was also used for a few scenes in the movie as well.

As you can see in the above screen capture, and as was the case with the Bartel home which I blogged about yesterday, the property’s real life address was referred to in the movie in the scene in which Marlene Craven (aka Julianne Moore) looks at the real estate flyer for Dr. Mott’s former house.

Big THANK YOU to my good friend and fellow stalker Kerry for bringing me to this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Dr. Mott’s house from The Hand That Rocks the Cradle is located at 2502 37th Avenue West in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle, Washington.

November 10, 2010
The “Hand That Rocks The Cradle” House

Another location that I stalked while visiting the Pacific Northwest this past May was the gorgeous Victorian-style residence where the Bartel family – Claire (aka Annabella Sciorra), Michael (aka Matt McCoy), Emma (aka an absolutely adorable pre-Californication Madeline Zima), and baby Joey (aka Eric, Jennifer, and Ashley Melander) – and their nanny, Peyton Flanders (aka Rebecca De Mornay), lived in the 1992 thriller The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. Even though I had actually only seen the movie once – almost two decades ago when it was first released in theatres – the Bartel home made such an impression on me that an image of it has been imprinted on my mind ever since. It is absolutely amazing to me how iconic the dwelling still is all these years later. Even more amazing to me is the fact that the home pictured above wasn’t actually the producer’s first choice for the filming of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. They originally approached the owners of a different Tacoma-area Victorian residence – one that was chosen seven years later to stand in for the Stratford family home in the 1999 teen comedy 10 Things I Hate About You. But because The Hand filmmakers wanted to paint over some interior woodwork, cut holes in several walls, and temporarily remove all of the real life furnishings and decor, the 10 Things homeowners turned down the offer and a different property located just over a mile to the west was chosen instead. And the rest, as they say, is history. There’s a quote from the now-defunct Movieline Magazine that I’ve had pinned up on my bulletin board for over twenty years now which reads, “It is always fascinating to learn how an actress came to play a role in which she is so perfect for the part that you can’t imagine anyone else ever having been considered.” Well, the same can be said for houses, and it especially holds true for The Hand That Rocks the Cradle house – I honestly can’t imagine any other residence ever having been considered for the Bartel home.

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I am very happy to report that The Hand That Rocks the Cradle house looks remarkably the same today as it did eighteen years ago when it appeared in the movie. The residence has been painted a different color since that time and there is a quite a bit more foliage surrounding the property now, but otherwise it is still completely recognizable.

Even the light post/address marker located near the front porch is still there in real life, although the top of it is shaped a bit differently now.





The backside of the house and the garage area also appeared in the flick . . .

. . . although both have been remodeled quite a bit since filming took place.



The real life interior of the home was also used extensively in the filming.

Amazingly enough, the owners of the house decided to leave the famous Hand That Rocks the Cradle greenhouse, which played a pivotal role in the movie and which was built solely for the filming, intact after the flick had wrapped, which I think is just about the coolest thing ever! Even cooler still is the fact that there is a scene in the movie in which Michael calls 911 and says to the police, “We live at 808 Yakima”, which is the home’s actual address. I love it when real life details like that are included in a script!

In real life, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle house, which was originally built in 1891, boasts 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and a whopping 6,105 square feet of living space. And while the residence is absolutely beautiful in person, I prefer the white color it was painted in the movie, as opposed to the yellow color it is currently painted today.

On a celebrity-sighting side-note – While doing some grocery shopping this past Sunday afternoon, I happened to run into actress Kimmy Robertson, who played Cathy in fave movie Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead. I just about died when I realized who she was and, despite the Grim Cheaper’s objections, followed her outside to ask if she wouldn’t mind taking a photograph with me. Kimmy was SUPER, SUPER nice and even chatted with us about Don’t Tell Mom for a bit. I think she found me a bit odd when I told her how upset I was that the All American Burger on Sunset Boulevard – which stood in for Clown Dog restaurant in the movie – had recently been torn down, but she and her dog Cleo happily posed for a pic with me nonetheless. So incredibly cool!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Hand That Rocks the Cradle house is located at 808 North Yakima Avenue in Tacoma, Washington.

November 9, 2010
Villa Sorriso – The Restaurant Where Michael Jackson’s “Celebration of Life” Reception Was Held

One location that I stalked quite a while back, but, for whatever reason, have yet to blog about is Villa Sorriso Ristorante – the Italian eatery where the Jackson family hosted the September 3, 2009 “Celebration of Life” reception for pop star Michael Jackson following his burial at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale. I dragged my good friend Nat, who was in town visiting from the San Francisco-area, and the Grim Cheaper out to the Old Town Pasadena restaurant this past June to celebrate my 33rd birthday after the place had been high up on my “To Stalk” list for close to a year. And I have to say that the restaurant was definitely worth the wait! I absolutely fell in love with the place immediately upon entering.

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Villa Sorriso is absolutely HUGE and is composed of two formerly separate spaces that originally housed the restaurants Clearwater Seafood and Old Town Bakery. The 12,000-square foot property currently consists of a central outdoor courtyard that encircles a large silver fountain, a side patio with private cabanas that are available for rent, a martini bar and lounge complete with a separate VIP section, a private upstairs lounge named Zebra, and several indoor dining areas. Sorriso, as it was originally known, first opened back in 1991 and at the time was located at 46 East Colorado Boulevard, across the street from its current location, and was, ironically enough, the very first Pasadena restaurant my family and I ate at upon moving to the City of Roses a little over a decade ago. The eatery moved to its current location in early 2004, whereupon “Villa” was added to its name. Ironically enough, the Italian restaurant is actually owned by a Taiwanese-born aerospace engineer/investment baker named Jack Huang. After working in the aerospace industry for over a decade, Huang had a short stint heading up the worker’s compensation department of the popular Panda Express Chinese food chain, during which he became interested in opening a restaurant of his own. In 1994, Jack, along with his wife, Karen, founded his first eatery, Wok ‘N’ Roll Sushi, which was also coincidentally Old Town Pasadena’s very first sushi bar. In 2000, he purchased the already established Sorriso Ristorante from its original owner, Varo Angeletti, and set about revamping and updating the property which, at the time, was floundering. The restaurant became a hit and a few years later he moved it to its current, larger home. Instead of subletting the lease on the former Sorriso space, Jack decided to open up a tapas bar named Bar Celona in its place. And in November of 2009, he bought out the owners of the now-defunct Fred’s Mexican Cafe and opened up ix-Tapa Cantina, a spot which just so happens to be my very favorite Mexican restaurant in Pasadena.

Villa Sorriso is an absolutely beautiful place that serves up some fabulous food and I honestly can’t recommend stalking the place enough. I ordered the crusted rosemary chicken entree while I was there and it was simply delicious!! My favorite part about the restaurant, though, had to be the fact that old black-and-white movies are projected onto the walls of the courtyard each night, as you can see in the above photograph. So incredibly cool!

For Michael Jackson’s “Celebration of Life”, the Jackson family rented out the entire restaurant to host 250 of the King of Pop’s closest family and friends. Guests included Macaulay Culkin, Mila Kunis, Corey Feldman, Al Sharpton, and Gladys Knight. The entire Jackson family – most notably Jermaine – has apparently been frequenting the restaurant since it first opened back in 1991, which is how they decided upon holding the gathering there. Quite a few industry parties have been held there over the years as well, including the January 2010 FOX Broadcasting Company’s UpFront after-party, at which Lisa Edelstein, Jesse Spencer, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Dianna Agron, Jane Lynch, Cory Monteith, Kevin McHale, Lea Michele, Jenna Ushkowitz, Emily Deschanel, Olivia Wilde, and Seth Green were all in attendance. You can see photographs of that party here. My girl Shannen Doherty has also been spotted at the restaurant in the past.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Villa Sorriso is located at 168 West Colorado Boulevard in Old Town Pasadena. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

November 8, 2010
The Canyon Country Store Where Jennifer Aniston Used to Work

I just recently finished reading Jennifer: The Unauthorized Biography, a FABULOUS book about my girl Jen Aniston written by Sean Smith, a famed British biographer who has also penned bestselling bios about J.K Rowling, Britney Spears, and Justin Timberlake. According to the brief blurb about Smith featured on the book’s first page, the U.K. newspaper The Independent once dubbed the author a “fearless chronicler” and I honestly couldn’t agree with that sentiment more. The guy is a meticulous researcher and, while you wouldn’t think there would be much information about Jen that I didn’t already know, Smith managed to dig up a few factoids that had me spinning with excitement – one of which being that the actress once worked at the Canyon Country Store – a deli/market in Laurel Canyon – for a few months before becoming famous. Smith happened upon the market by chance, actually. At the time she worked there, Jen was living just up the road from the store in a home at the end of Ridgemont Drive and, while venturing up to her former abode while doing research for his book, Smith decided to stop in for a bite to eat at the small grocery store. While there, he happened to ask the owner if Jen had ever frequented the place and was shocked to discover that she had actually once worked there! According to Tommy, the market’s longtime owner, Jen did a little bit of everything at the store – from working the cash register to stocking shelves to making sandwiches at the deli counter. When she started landing jobs in the entertainment industry, she quit working at the market, but would still pop in regularly to buy cigarettes and other essentials. Well, as you can imagine, I just about died upon learning that information and immediately dragged my husband right on out to stalk the place.

The Canyon Country Store has actually been around since the early 1900s. At the time it was known as the Bungalow Inn Lodge and area hunters would congregate there each night to host picnics. The Inn burned down in 1929 and was subsequently rebuilt out of a more substantial brick material. A kitchen was added to the premises a few years later, whereupon food was served to hungry patrons. The property eventually evolved into a grocery store and then finally into the delicatessen/market/fine wine shop/coffee bar that it is today. During the ‘60s, the store became a regular hangout for Jim Morrison and his musician friends, who all lived nearby and would often gather together on the market’s front patio for spontaneous jam sessions. Everyone from Joni Mitchell to Three Dog Night to Frank Zappa has performed live at the market at one time or another. In his famous song “Love Street”, Jim sings of “this store where the creatures meet”. That store is none other than the Canyon Country Store and “Love Street” is actually Rothdale Trail, the street that runs behind the market which Jim and his longtime girlfriend Pamela Courson referred to as “Love Street” because of the many hippies and love children that would walk down it each day.

I had the pleasure of meeting Tommy while we were stalking the Canyon Country Store and, let me tell you, the guy could NOT have been nicer!!! Not only did he take us on our own little private tour of the place, but when I asked if I could snap some photographs, he suggested that I get behind the main counter and pretend to use the cash register like Jen used to do when she worked there! Well, as you can imagine, I just about had a heart attack upon hearing his offer and immediately jumped behind the counter to snap a quick pic. So incredibly cool! He also told us that Jen was an amazingly nice person and that she truly listened when speaking with people, which is a very rare quality indeed!

Tommy also informed us that when Jen was married to Brad Pitt, the two would often stop by to say hi and to grab a bite to eat at Pace Italian Restaurant, which is located directly below the market and is a place I am going to have to stalk in the very near future!

Because so many celebs live in Laurel Canyon, the Country Store is regularly frequented by stars. Sophia Loren, Jessica Biel, and Pamela Anderson have all been spotted there in the past and actress Christina Applegate (pictured above) is apparently a regular.

And the store is also a filming location! The market was featured at the very beginning of the 1980 horror movie The Fog, although it looked quite different at that time. You can see a photograph of the market as it looked during the ’80s here. The Canyon Country Store has also been featured in the movies Breezy, Rainbow Drive, and the aptly-titled Laurel Canyon – none of which I have ever seen. 🙁

Tommy was also nice enough to walk us down to Jim Morrison and Pamela Courson’s former house, which is located directly behind the Country Store. You can check out some great interior photographs of the home, which is currently for sale for a cool $1,199,000, here.

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I, of course, had to grab a bite to eat while I was stalking the market, which the Grim Cheaper was not too happy about, especially when he discovered that the deli sandwich he ordered was going to cost him $8.99. He later said it was one of the best sandwiches he had ever eaten, though, and had to concede that it was worth every penny. 🙂 I opted for the market’s chicken salad, which was simply AMAZING! Honestly, some of the best chicken salad I’ve ever had in my entire life, and that means a lot coming from me as I am VERY picky about my chicken. I honestly cannot recommend eating at the Canyon Country Store enough – it is FABULOUS!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Canyon Country Store is located at 2108 Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Laurel Canyon. Jim Morrison and Pamela Courson’s former home is located just behind the store at 8021 Rothdell Trail. You can order Sean Smith’s biography of Jennifer Aniston here.

November 5, 2010
Stu’s House from “The Hangover”

One location that I have been on the lookout for for over a year now is the adorable bungalow where Stu Price (aka Ed Helms) and his girlfriend Melissa (aka Rachael Harris) lived in fave movie The Hangover. I absolutely fell in love with Stu’s home the moment I saw it in the flick and, thanks to its Craftsman-style architecture, became convinced that it was most likely located in the Pasadena area. Thankfully, I had spotted an address number of 1325 on the front of the house while watching the movie, so as soon as I got home from the theatre I immediately began searching all of the 1300 blocks in Pasadena for the property. When that failed, I moved my hunt first to South Pasadena and then to Altadena, but came up completely empty-handed on both ends. I was still absolutely convinced, though, that the property had to somewhere in the San Gabriel Valley. And oh, how wrong I was! Enter Mike, from MovieShotsLA, who decided to help me in my Hangover quest by searching for the home outside of the Pasadena city limits. And sure enough, it wasn’t long before he found it, in a place I never would have even thought to look – West Hollywood. So, a couple of weeks ago, after our tour of Paramount Studios, I took fellow stalkers Lavonna, Beth, Debbie, and Connie, who were all in town visiting from Ohio, right on over to WeHo to do some Hangover stalking.

The house was used in the very brief, but extremely funny scene in which Phil Wenneck (aka Bradley Cooper), Alan Garner (aka Zach Galifianakis), and Doug Billings (aka Justin Bartha) pick up Stu before heading to Las Vegas, where Doug’s bachelor party is being held. And I am very happy to report that the incredibly picturesque home looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen.

As you can see in the above screen captures and interior images of the property (which I snagged off of a real estate listing that I found online yesterday), the actual interior of the home was also used in the filming of The Hangover. The areas used include the kitchen;

one of the bathrooms;

the dining room;

and the living room – the fireplace of which you can just barely see in the above screen capture.

The window where Stu and Melissa sat in the scene is located just to the left of the abode’s front door. Unfortunately, though, the real estate website did not include an interior photograph of that exact spot. Nor did the listing make any reference to the home’s cinematic history, which is a total abomination in my eyes! I mean, come on, did the real estate agent honestly not realize that mentioning the property’s appearance in one of the biggest movies of 2009 would add value to the home? Sigh! Why do I have to think of everything? 😉

The 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 1,746-square foot dwelling, which was originally built in 1919, was sold this past August for a cool $1.2 million. Interestingly enough, while searching property records for the house yesterday, I came across information that former Beverly Hills, 90210-actress Lindsay Price and her then-husband, producer Shawn Pillar, owned the home from October 2003 through March 2006. So incredibly cool!

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On a Hangover side note – Before meeting up with me a couple of weeks ago, fellow stalkers Lavonna, Debbie, Connie, and Beth went on a tour of Warner Brothers Studios, where The Hangover 2 is currently being filmed, and while there they spotted both Bradley Cooper and Zach Galifianakis. The actors were being shuttled around on a golf cart at the time and while Zach tried to shield his face from view, Bradley Cooper was nice enough to turn around and wave to the girls. So cute! 🙂

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location and to fellow stalkers Lavonna and Beth for loaning me the above photographs of Zach and Bradley to publish in this post! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Stu Price’s house from The Hangover is located at 1325 North Ogden Drive in Hollywood. You can check out the home’s real estate listing here.

November 4, 2010
Halloween 2010 at the Hotel Santa Barbara

As I mentioned last week, this past Saturday morning the Grim Cheaper and I headed up north to the Central Coast of California to spend Halloween with our good friends who live in Santa Barbara, or the “American Riviera” as the seaside city is colloquially known. For those who have never visited the area during Halloween, I must say that there is just simply no place better to spend the holiday. For whatever, Santa Barbara has got some MAJOR Halloween spirit. Downtown State Street turns into one big Halloween fest each and every October 31st, during which everyone – and I do mean everyone – dresses up for the occasion. It’s an absolute blast and if you EVER have the opportunity, I HIGHLY recommend spending at least one Halloween there!

At one point in the evening, we even witnessed a flash mob dancing to “Michael Jackson’s Thriller”, in which ALL of the participants were dressed like Zombies. So darn cool! But I digress.

Anyway, as I always do when planning a vacation, I set out to find a hotel to stay at that had some sort of Hollywood history or cinematic significance. And find one, I did! While doing some cyberstalking I came across an article on the Santa Barbara Conference & Visitors Bureau website titled “Movie Tourism is a Natural in ‘Hollywood North’”. Besides doling out some fabulous area filming location information, the article also stated that in the 1920s the Hotel Santa Barbara, a place where I have actually always wanted to stay, was “the getaway for many of Hollywood’s brightest stars”, including actors Leo Carrillo, Clark Gable, and Carole Lombard. So, I immediately booked the GC and I a room there.

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The 84-room, Mediterranean-style property, which was originally named “The Saint Barbara Hotel”, was established in 1916 and was one of the first hotels built by famed Santa Barbara hotelier Neal Callahan. The original hotel building was destroyed during the June 29, 1925 earthquake and was rebuilt by Callahan the following year. From the very beginning, the upscale hotel enjoyed a loyal following, housing vacationing starlets and wealthy tourists alike. According to this October 2000 Los Angeles Times article, during Prohibition the property even boasted a hidden gambling room on its premises, where alcohol was indeed still served. And while in later years the hotel degraded a bit in stature, it underwent an extensive $4 million renovation and restoration project in 1997 and is once again a popular upscale vacation venue.

The hotel was very reasonably priced by Santa Barbara standards (most hotels in the seaside city are exorbitantly expensive and not very well maintained), especially considering the place’s centralized downtown location. Lots of freebies, such as bottled water in the room, wireless internet, and a continental breakfast, were also included. Our room, while small, was extremely cozy and very nicely appointed.

And it also boasted a fabulous view of Downtown State Street and the Santa Barbara Mountains. And even thought the staff there couldn’t tell me much about the history of the place nor about any of its celebrity clientele during the heyday of Hollywood, I honestly can’t recommend the Hotel Santa Barbara enough! I’ve stayed in quite a few different hotels in the area over the years and not only was the Hotel Santa Barbara one of the nicest, it was also one of the least expensive, which, of course, pleased the Grim Cheaper to no end. 🙂

As always, the GC and I looked to Hollywood for our costume inspiration this year and decided to dress up as Ferris Bueller (aka Matthew Broderick) and Sloane Peterson (aka Mia Sara) from fave movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. My mom, whose help we enlisted to make Ferris’ leopard print vest, was convinced that no one would recognize us being that the movie is almost two and a half decades old. I, however, knew that would not be the case. I mean, hello! Ferris and Sloane are iconic! How could people NOT know who we were! And sure enough, I was right – people recognized us pretty much everywhere we went that night. 🙂 Well, a few did refer to us as Ferris and “Simone”, but hey, that’s close enough. 😉

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Hotel Santa Barbara is located at 533 State Street in the heart of Downtown Santa Barbara. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

November 2, 2010
Helen Bernstein High School – The New William McKinley High from “Glee”

A little birdie recently told me that fave show Glee was no longer filming on location at Juan Cabrillo High School in Long Beach – a locale which I blogged about back in January of this year – and that producers had found a new school to stand in for the fictional William McKinley High, one that is located a bit closer to Paramount Studios where the series is lensed. So, I immediately started digging around the internet to find out exactly which school was now being used and fairly quickly came across this YouTube video which an anonymous person had taken of the cast while they were filming the Season 2 episode of the show titled “Audition”. In the comments section, the video’s author explained that the segment had been taped at Helen Bernstein High School in Hollywood. So, I immediately put the location high up on my “To Stalk” list and after embarking on the Paramount Tour with fellow stalker Lavonna and her friends Beth, Debbie, and Connie, who were in town visiting from Ohio a few weeks back, we all set out to stalk the new William McKinley High.

Helen Bernstein High School, which was named after the former president of the Los Angeles teachers’ union who passed away in 1997, just recently opened in the fall of 2008. The school was constructed by the award-winning Chicago-based architecture firm of Perkins+Will in order to help ease the overcrowding at both John Marshall High School in Los Feliz and Hollywood High School in Hollywood. The four-story school, which boasts 2,000 students, sits on 12. 4 acres of land, and measures a whopping 238,492 square feet of learning space, is easily one of the largest educational institutions that I’ve ever come across in my entire life! The place is absolutely massive, and in an interesting historical note, was built on the former site of Fox Television Center/KTTV Studios, where such iconic shows as Saved by the Bell, Maude, One Day at a Time, Diff’rent Strokes, The Facts of Life, In Living Color, The Jeffersons and the pilot episode of Family Ties were filmed. The studio, which later changed its name to Metromedia Square, was sold to the the Los Angeles Unified School District in 2000 and just three years later it was demolished entirely to make way for the new high school. You can read more about the construction of Helen Bernstein High here.

The area of the school that is most prominently featured on Glee is the main quad, which was the site of the New Directions’ rousing performance of “Empire State of Mind” in the “Audition” episode and the spot that I most wanted to stalk. And even though we had waited until 4 p.m. to visit Helen Bernstein, after school was already over for the day, I wasn’t sure how amenable the staff would be to letting us onto the property. When we explained that we were HUGE Glee fans, though, and that Lavonna and her friends were in town visiting all the way from Ohio, one of the super nice office administrators agreed to bring us over to the quad area and then allowed us to take all of the photographs of the place that we wanted! 🙂 YAY!

In the “Empire State of Mind” scene, the Glee kids put on a lunchtime show in order to try to entice their fellow McKinley High students to join New Directions. And I have to say that the performance has to be one of my all-time favorites of the entire series, most likely because I absolutely love that song. In fact, I think I like the Glee kids’ version of it even more than I do the original! “In Neeeeew Yoooooooork . . . “

You can watch the FABULOUS “Empire State of Mind” scene by clicking above.

While we were stalking the quad, Lavonna, Beth, and I got to act out our own little mini-versions of the scene, which I was absolutely floored about.

And I, of course, just had to take a picture in the spot where Rachel Berry (aka Lea Michele) was sitting at the very end of the scene, although, as it turns out, I ended up sitting just a bit too far to the left. Ironically enough, while we were snapping photographs, we spotted some Glee crew members who were onsite setting up for some filming which was going to be taking place the following day. They did not seem all that friendly, though, so I did not attempt to talk to any of them.

All of the William McKinley High School gym scenes – even those filmed during Season 1 – take place at Helen Bernstein, as well.

As do the cafeteria scenes, but unfortunately we were not able to stalk those two areas while we were there. You can see some fabulous interior photographs of the school here, though.

And, according to the YouTube video commenters, the scene in which Finn Hudson (aka Cory Monteith ) sang “Hello, I Love You” in the Season 1 episode titled “Hell-O” was also filmed at Helen Bernstein High School.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Helen Bernstein High School, aka the new William McKinley High School from Glee, is located at 1309 North Wilton Place in Hollywood. Please remember that Helen Bernstein is a working high school and is not actually open to the public. If you would like to visit it, I recommend doing so on off hours when children are not present and always, always get permission from a staff member in the main office before entering the school grounds. The area where the Glee kids sung “Empire State of Mind” is the main quad, which is located just due east of the school’s entrance and is denoted with the pink arrows in the above aerial view.

November 1, 2010