famous restaurants – Page 19

August 16, 2010August 16, 2010

The Athenian Inn from “Sleepless in Seattle”

Another location at the very top of my Must-Stalk-While-in-the-Pacific-Northwest list was the Athenian Inn Seafood Restaurant and Bar, which made a brief, but quite memorable appearance in the 1993 romantic comedy Sleepless in Seattle. I had been absolutely dying to stalk the restaurant for what seemed like years for a couple of reasons. One, because as I’ve mentioned before, Sleepless has long been one of my very favorite movies. And two, because fellow stalker Kerry had previously visited the place and told me that there were numerous photographs of the filming displayed on the restaurant’s walls. As you can imagine, I could NOT wait to see those photographs for myself! So, after grabbing a coffee at the very first Starbucks store, which I blogged about a couple of weeks ago, Kerry, her husband Jim, the Grim Cheaper, and I all headed across the street to Pike Place Market, where the Athenian Inn has been located for over a century. Yes, you read that right! The Athenian Inn, which was founded by the three Pappadakis brothers, who hailed from Greece – hence the “Athenian” in the name – first opened over one hundred years ago, in 1909. Originally a bakery/candy shop/luncheonette, the establishment later transformed into a bar (in 1933, it was one of the first places in Seattle to be granted a liquor license to serve wine and beer) and then eventually into a full-blown restaurant. In 1964, the Inn was purchased by Bob and Louise Cromwell, who added a lounge and a balcony to the premises, and although Bob passed away in 2002, Louise still owns and manages the place to this day. You can read a more comprehensive history of the restaurant here.

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In Sleepless in Seattle, the Athenian Inn was the restaurant where Sam Baldwin (aka Tom Hanks) and his friend Jay (aka Rob Reiner) discussed dating in the ‘90s, “cute butts”, and the mystery that is tiramisu. And even though the scene that was filmed there took up only one minute and thirty-eight seconds of screen time, it made such an impact on the movie-going public that seventeen years later the place is STILL one of Seattle’s top tourist attractions! Isn’t that amazing?!?! Less than two minutes of screen time in a movie that is almost two decades old and the restaurant is still drawing crowds! INCREDIBLE! It reminds me of what happened with Magnolia Bakery in New York – a cupcakery that appeared in a one minute and seventeen second scene from an episode of Sex and the City which first aired over a decade ago, and fans are STILL lining up around the block to catch a glimpse of the place. I think it is so incredibly cool when a movie or television show creates such a monumental impact like that! But I digress.

The Sleepless in Seattle scene that was filmed at the Athenian Inn was shot at the northwest corner of the restaurant’s counter, right near the main entrance.

Not that I really need to explain that here, though, because the restaurant actually has plaques which denote the exact location where filming took place. How incredibly cool is that???? Oh, how I wish EVERY filming location would honor its cinematic history by doing something similar. LOVE IT!!! LOVE IT!!! LOVE IT!!!

And fellow stalker Kerry and I, of course, just had to recreate the Sleepless scene while we were there!

Thankfully, little has changed at the Athenian Inn in the more than 17 years since Sleepless was filmed there and the place looks pretty much EXACTLY the same today as it did then.

In fact, from what I’ve been able to discern, it seems that not much has been changed in the more than hundred years since the historic restaurant first opened. The neon sign that was first hung over the establishment’s front door by the Pappadakis brothers in 1933 is still hanging in the very same spot to this day! So darn cool!

I honestly cannot recommend stalking the Athenian Inn enough! The food was great, the prices reasonable, the views of Elliot Bay amazing, and the staff super friendly. Not to mention the many nods to the restaurant’s cinematic history which are proudly displayed on the walls. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Athenian Inn from Sleepless in Seattle is located at 1517 Pike Place, inside Pike Place Market, in Seattle. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here. In Sleepless, Tom Hanks and Rob Reiner sat at the northwest corner of the restaurant’s counter.

August 12, 2010July 20, 2010

The Bistro Garden

A couple of weeks ago, while searching online for different filming locations from The Office, I came across some information about an area restaurant which not only appeared in The Office, but in countless other productions over the years, as well – the Bistro Garden in Studio City. So, I, of course, dragged the Grim Cheaper right out to stalk it that very weekend! And I think it is safe to say that we both pretty much fell in love with the place immediately upon arriving! The Bistro Garden was first opened by Carolyn Niklas Pappas, the daughter of famed restaurateur Kurt Niklas (who founded the enormously popular celebrity hotspots Bistro and the original Bistro Garden in Beverly Hills) and her husband Gregory Pappas in 1990. Two decades later, the place is still one of the Valley’s most popular restaurants – and definitely its most romantic! According to this 2009 Los Angeles Times article, restaurant reviewer Max Jacobson said of the Bistro Garden that it “may have been the most beautiful restaurant he had ever dined in”. And he wasn’t exaggerating – the place is exquisite.

The Bistro Garden, which according to its website was modeled after a “European Wintergarden”, features a central indoor courtyard with a huge, peaked skylight roof, large French doors, and a perimeter of potted trees covered in twinkle lights, all of which give off the feeling of being outside in some sort of magical garden oasis. And I swear they must pump some sort of rose fragrance through the air conditioning vents, because the place smells like fresh cut flowers – it’s AMAZING!

The restaurant’s wood-paneled mahogany bar area, where the Grim Cheaper and I ate, definitely evokes a feeling of Old Hollywood, especially with the Michael Buble and Frank Sinatra music that plays in the background. Love it! 🙂 The staff also could NOT have been friendlier and answered all of my silly little questions about the filming that has taken place there over the years. Oh, and the food was absolutely incredible, too! And even though the restaurant is a bit pricey, the Grim Cheaper thoroughly enjoyed himself and said he can’t wait to go back! That in and of itself is a testament to how good the place is.

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In the Season 6 episode of The Office titled “Double Date”, the Bistro Garden stood in for Paparazzo’s (LOL!), the Italian restaurant where Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell) hosted a birthday luncheon for Pam’s (aka Jenna Fischer’s) mom, Helene (aka Linda Purl). It is there that Michael decides that Helene, at age 58, is far too old for him and promptly breaks up with her . . . in the middle of her birthday lunch.

Steve Carell also filmed a scene from 2005’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin at the Bistro Garden – the scene in which his character Andy attends a Date-A-Palooza speed-dating event.

Randomly enough, The Office’s Mindy Kaling also made an appearance in that scene.

In 2010’s Valentine’s Day, the Bistro Garden was the spot where Julia Fitzpatrick (aka Jennifer Garner) confronted her boyfriend, Dr. Harrison Copeland (aka Patrick Dempsey), after finding out that he was married.

In 1997’s Liar Liar, the Bistro Garden was the spot where Jerry (aka Cary Elwes) proposed to Audrey (aka Maura Tierney).

Bistro Garden has popped up twice in Desperate Housewives. In the Season 2 episode titled “Remember (1)”, the restaurant’s bar area was where Gabrielle Solis (aka Eva Longoria Parker) discovered (wrongly) via a newscast that her husband Carlos (aka Ricardo Chavira) had died in a car accident.

The restaurant was also where Zach Young (aka Cody Kasch) unveiled himself to be Gabrielle’s secret admirer in the Season 3 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Not While I’m Around”.

The Bistro Garden also showed up twice on fave show Beverly Hills, 90210 – first in the Season 8 episode titled “Toil and Trouble” as the spot where Cooper Hargrove (aka Christopher Orr) gifted Valerie Malone (aka Tiffani Amber-Thiessen) with a diamond necklace.

And second in the Season 10 episode titled “Laying Pipe”. But in actuality only the exterior of the Bistro Garden was featured in the “Laying Pipe” episode.

As you can see in the above screen captures, the interior filming took place elsewhere. The restaurant was also featured in an episode of Melrose Place, but because I didn’t really watch that show, I am unsure of exactly which episode.

Bistro Garden is also something of a celebrity hotspot, as well. Just a few of the celebs who have been spotted dining there recently include Taylor Lautner, Taylor Swift, and Steve Carell.

On a side note – I will not be publishing a new blog post for tomorrow, or for the next two Fridays. Because of my upcoming wedding, I wrote all of my August blog posts in advance and unfortunately was only able to get enough done to publish four each week. But I will be back on Monday with a whole new post. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Bistro Garden is located at 12950 Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

July 19, 2010July 16, 2010

The Moonlight Mile Bar from “Beautiful Girls”

While going through my trusty stalking notebook this morning, I realized that I still have quite the backlog of Minnesota filming locations that I have yet to blog about. Not to mention the slew of Seattle locales that I haven’t even yet begun to post! I’m going to mix them all in with L.A. area locations over the next few weeks so that my fellow stalkers don’t get bored reading about the same city over and over again. But for today I thought I’d write about Minneapolis’ Nomad World Pub, the watering hole which stood in for the supposed Knight’s Ridge-area “Moonlight Mile” bar where Paul Kirkwood (aka Michael Rapaport) took Andera Womack (aka Uma Thurman) on a date in fave move Beautiful Girls. At the time, the bar was known as the 5 Corners Saloon, but ownership changed hands back in December of 2004 and so did the name. I found this location, once again, thanks to fellow stalker Owen and his highly-coveted Beautiful Girls master locations list! So, I, of course, just had to drag my parents out to stalk the place while we were in Minnesota this past May.

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In Beautiful Girls, Paul cooks up a ruse to bring “the lovely Andera” out on on a date at the Moonlight Mile bar for the sole purpose of making his ex-girlfriend Jan (aka Martha Plimpton), who hangs out there regularly, jealous. And I am very happy to report that even though ownership of the establishment has changed and over fourteen years have passed since Beautiful Girls was filmed, the interior of the Nomad still looks much the same as it did in the movie. YAY!

And, as it was portrayed in the flick, Nomad World Pub is actually a live-music venue.

Sadly though, the set of booths where Paul and Andera sat in Beautiful Girls, which used to run along the pub’s north side, have long since been removed. 🙁 I was seriously disappointed once I realized that as I had so wanted to sit in the exact spot where Michael Rapaport and Uma Thurman sat in the scene. UGH! Have I mentioned before how much I dislike change?? 😉

Even though little has been altered since Nomad World Pub took over ownership of the property, the former 5 Corners Saloon is apparently well-missed. There is even a Facebook page named “Remember the 5 Corners Saloon” that has been set up in honor of the historic former bar. So darn cool! You can see photographs of how the place used to look here.

For whatever reason, a different location entirely – a place known as Rich’s Health Shop in Stillwater, Minnesota – stood in for the Moonlight Mile’s exterior in Beautiful Girls. Sadly though, that building was torn down several years ago to make room for a new loft development, so I did not get to stalk it. And as you can see in the above photograph and screen capture, it beared little resemblance to the 5 Corners Saloon’s actual exterior.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Nomad World Pub, aka the Moonlight Mile bar from Beautiful Girls, is located at 501 Cedar Avenue South in Minneapolis, Minnesota. You can visit the pub’s official website here. Rich’s Health Shop, which was used as the exterior of the Moonlight Mile bar and has since been torn down, was located at 304 Main Street North in Stillwater, Minnesota.

July 14, 2010July 13, 2010

The Tam O’Shanter Inn from “Glee”

A couple of weeks ago I dragged my fiancé out to stalk the Tam O’Shanter Inn which appeared in the Season 1 episode of Glee titled “Dream On”. I found this location thanks to an eagle-eyed stalker who recognized the restaurant immediately while watching the episode back in May. And even though I no longer consider myself a “Gleek” (gasp!), I just could not resist stalking the place. And yes, you read that right – I am no longer a huge fan of Glee. In fact, I can’t even really say that I like the series at all anymore, let alone love it like I used to. In my never-to-be-humble opinion, the show has gone WAY downhill ever since it returned from its four month hiatus this past April. I don’t know if it’s due to the fact that it became such a humongous hit in such a short period of time or if the writers just simply got lazy, but somewhere along the way the show lost its heart. It’s become more about the music and less about the characters that I grew to love so deeply in the first part of the season. While the series used to be over-the-top and fun, in recent months it’s become ridiculous and largely unbelievable – Kurt and Mercedes joining the cheerios, Olivia Newton-John asking Sue Sylvester to star in a re-make of her “Physical” video, and Shelby Corcoran – the coach of Vocal Adrenaline – adopting Quinn and Puck’s baby???? Like, huh??? I could go on and on and on. Not to mention the fact that Mr. Shue, who was in my eyes the real heart of the show, has become a complete and total jerk – i.e. cheating on Emma, pretending to be in love with Sue Sylvester (I don’t even know what to say about that one!), and hooking up with his arch-enemy and head of the rival Glee club, Shelby Corcoran. Sigh. The whole thing makes my head hurt. Although I did love it when all of the kids were calling him “Man Whore” in the “Bad Reputation” episode. Anyway, despite all of that, because I loved part one of the series’ first season SO much, I still find it fun stalking locations featured on the show. Which is how my fiancé and I ended up at the Tam O’Shanter Inn two weekends ago.

Tam O’Shanter Inn actually has a long and celebrated Hollywood history. It was first opened in June of 1922 by Lawry’s restaurant chain founders Lawrence Frank and Walter Van de Kamp and has the distinction of being Los Angeles’ oldest restaurant that is still operating in the same location and by the same family. Art director/humorist Harry Oliver, designer of the Spadena House in Beverly Hills (aka the Witch’s House from Clueless), was commissioned to design the original building in what is called the “storybook-style” of architecture. In fact, the restaurant’s original interior closely resembled that of a ride at Disneyland. The property was extensively remodeled and expanded in 1968 at which time it was renamed the “Great Scot”. In 1982, in honor of the restaurant’s 60th anniversary, the original name, which refers to a style of hat worn in Scotland, was restored and it has remained to this day.

In the “Dream On” episode of Glee, Will Schuester (aka cutie Matthew Morrison) takes frenemie and former Glee-club-rival Bryan Ryan (aka guest star Neil Patrick Harris) to the Tam O’Shanter Inn for a drink to convince him to not shut down the Glee club. Will finally gets Brian to concede and the two wind up singing a rousing rendition of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man”.

When we first walked into the Tam O’Shanter Inn, I asked the hostess who greeted us at the door where exactly the “Dream On” episode had been filmed. Well, let me tell you, she could NOT HAVE BEEN NICER! She immediately sat us in the bar area in the exact spot where Matthew Morrison and Neil Patrick Harris were sitting in the episode. She also told us the direction the cameras were facing during filming, what areas of the restaurant could be see in the background, and asked if we wanted to reenact the “Piano Man” scene while she took photographs of us. LOVE IT! I was SO down with reenacting the scene, by the way, but the Grim Cheaper was having none of that! 😉

Filming for the yet-to-be-released Larry Crowne movie, which stars Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks, also took place at the Tam O’Shanter Inn earlier this year. According to the bartender we spoke with, producers had the above-pictured green rug made especially for the filming and then gifted it to the restaurant after shooting wrapped. SO DARN COOL!

Besides being a filming location, the restaurant is also a long time celebrity hangout. Just a few of the luminaries who have been spotted there over the years include Mary Pickford, John Wayne, Fatty Arbuckle, and Tom Mix. Walt Disney loved the place so much that he frequented it on an almost daily basis and on one visit gifted the owners with the above-pictured cartoon, which he personally drew of Lawrence Frank. According to the restaurant’s website, Disney executives dined at Tam O’Shanter’s so often that the place became known as “Disney’s studio commissary”. Apparently Walt’s favorite table was #31, while John Wayne preferred #15.

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I honestly cannot say enough good things about the Tam O’Shanter Inn. I absolutely LOVED the place! Especially their fried calamari appetizer!

On a Glee side note – For those of you who have not yet seen Heather Morris, who plays Brittany on Glee, performing “Single Ladies” live with Beyonce at the 2009 American Music Awards, you can do so now by clicking above. Apparently, Heather was not originally being considered as a cast-member for Glee, but was first called in by series creator Ryan Murphy to teach series regulars Chris Colfer and Jenna Ushkowitz the “Single Ladies” dance for the Season 1 episode titled “Preggers”. Fate stepped in, though, and Murphy ended up liking the actress/professional dancer so much that he immediately cast her in the role of ditzy cheerleader Brittany. And the rest, as they say, is history!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Tam O’Shanter Inn from Glee is located at 2980 Los Feliz Boulevard in the Atwater Village section of Los Angeles. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

July 9, 2010July 22, 2010

The Hungry Fox Restaurant from “The Office”

Another location that I stalked back in April while fellow stalker Lavonna and her daughter Melissa were in town was the Hungry Fox Restaurant, which appeared in the Season 3 episode of The Office titled “The Negotiation”. We found this location thanks to fellow stalker “Snidely Whiplash”, who posted a comment on my site a while back that listed an entire slew of Office locales. Snidely currently lives in the Valley, where most Office filming takes place, and often recognizes area locales when they pop up on the show. So, thank you, Snidely! Unfortunately though, because at the time I had never before seen an episode of The Office, when we went to stalk the Hungry Fox I had no idea what it was exactly that we were looking for – or looking at, for that matter. To further complicate things, Lavonna was under the mistaken impression that the restaurant stood in for Poor Richard’s Pub, the bar where Pam Beesly (aka Jenna Fischer) confessed to her ex-fiancé Roy Anderson (aka cutie David Denman, who also starred as hearing-impaired football player Brian Murphy in one of my very favorite movies – The Replacements) that she had cheated on him with Jim Halpert (aka John Krasinski) in the episode titled “Cocktails”. Because the Hungry Fox looks absolutely nothing like Poor Richard’s, though, we figured we had gotten the location wrong. It wasn’t until I recently sat down to watch The Office on DVD that I figured out which particular episode and which particular scene the Hungry Fox had actually appeared in.

As it turns out, the Hungry Fox, which, according to the sign put up for the filming, serves up “Scranton’s Best Breakfast” (LOVE IT!), stood in for the restaurant where Roy took his ex-fiancé Pam to talk about their recent break-up and his rather violent reaction to finding out that she and Jim had kissed. The two say their final good-byes to each other at the restaurant and Roy also rather meaningfully states, “I don’t get you, Pam”, to which she replies, “I know.”

Roy and Pam’s good-bye scene was filmed at the table located immediately to the left of the Hungry Fox’s front door (as you enter the restaurant), right next to the place’s resident fish tank. I have to say that the owner of the Hungry Fox was INCREDIBLY nice when we came in to stalk the place and told us that we were welcome to take as many pictures as we wanted, even though we weren’t actually eating there. Yay! And from what I’ve read on Yelp, we really missed out by not eating there, as the place apparently serves up some fabulous grub!

As I mentioned above, none of us stalkers were entirely sure what scene exactly had been filmed at the Hungry Fox, so we all pretty much just took some random photographs of the place. Whoopsie! Looks like I’m just going to have to go back there in the near future!

On a side note – After returning home, Lavonna did some cyber-stalking and found out that the bar which stood in for Poor Richard’s Pub on The Office is actually a place called Pickwick’s Pub in Woodland Hills. Besides the “Cocktails” episode, Pickwick’s also made an appearance in the Season 4 episode of The Office titled “Local Ad”. Thank you, Lavonna! I will FOR SURE be stalking this one! 🙂

Big THANK YOU to Snidely Whiplash for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Hungry Fox restaurant from “The Negotiation” episode of The Office is located at 13359 Sherman Way in North Hollywood.

June 22, 2010June 21, 2010

Casey’s Irish Pub

One location that I have been wanting to stalk for what seems like ages now is Casey’s Irish Pub (aka Casey’s Bar & Grill), a historic Downtown Los Angeles watering hole that has appeared in COUNTLESS movie and television productions throughout its more than thirty year history. I first found out about the bar over six months ago while doing some online research on locales featured in the first X-Files movie and the place has been high up on my “To Stalk” list ever since. But until this past weekend, I had yet to make it there. My delay in visiting the bar was not for lack of trying, though, believe me. For some reason, every time my fiancé and I found ourselves in the area, Casey’s Irish Pub was, unfortunately, closed. I’ve lost track of the amount of thwarted Casey’s stalking attempts that were actually made, but, trust me, the number is higher than you can count on one hand. Thankfully though, this past Saturday night, fate finally intervened and my fiancé and I found ourselves just a few blocks away from Casey’s during a time when the bar was actually open! YAY! And, even though I was in a fairly bad mood at the time – unfortunately, there is still some health drama going on with my dad and I also recently found out that one of my closest friends is ill, so it’s not exactly a happy time for me – we decided to stop in anyway. And I am SO glad that we did, because my spirits were lifted almost immediately upon walking through Casey’s beveled-glass doors.

The two-story building where Casey’s now resides was first constructed in 1916 and originally housed a general store on its street level and a Turkish bath on its basement-level. In 1924, the general store and bathhouse were closed and an upscale restaurant named B&M Cafeteria was opened in their place. The former general store space was transformed into B&M’s main dining room and the former Turkish bath location became the kitchen area. In the years following, the restaurant went through numerous changes of ownership and several different restaurant incarnations, until 1969, when it took on the name of Casey’s Irish Pub. Casey’s owners had the two-level property completely revamped, most notably moving the entire structure thirty feet back from the street in order to make room for an enclosed basement-level patio. After changing hands – but not its moniker – a few more times, in 2007 Casey’s was acquired by the nightlife development company 213 – the very same company that was also responsible for restoring the popular Cole’s Restaurant a few years back. (Once again I must apologize for the ultra-blurry photographs that appear in this post. I STILL cannot figure out how to use my new camera and I am growing seriously annoyed! UGH!)

Casey’s Irish Pub is absolutely HUGE (over 10,000 square feet!) and features a gorgeous mahogany bar, hand-pressed tin ceilings, a live-music stage, a dart room, a billiards room, and several private event areas, including the “Captain’s Quarters” (pictured above). Not only is the bar’s ambiance fabulous and unique, but the food is also INCREDIBLE, despite what the reviews on Yelp state. As I’ve mentioned numerous times in the past, I am an INCREDIBLY picky eater, especially when it comes to chicken, and I have to say that Casey’s serves up some of the best food in L.A. My fiancé and I especially loved their famous pub fries – which are an absolute must-have while dining at Casey’s – and their Cobb salad. The staff there could also NOT have been nicer and one of the bartenders even went so far as to take me on a little mini-tour of the place, which is how I got the above-pictured photographs of the Captain’s Quarters. 🙂 Love it!

The thing I was most excited about, though, was the fact that Casey’s not only serves champagne – and good champagne, at that – but they serve it in old-school champagne glasses, ala the kind Marilyn Monroe was always pictured drinking out of. So darn cool! I honestly can’t recommend stalking Casey’s enough!!!! I can pretty much guarantee its a place that stalkers and non-stalkers alike will appreciate!

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Walking through the doors of Casey’s Irish Pub is truly like stepping back in time and it is not very hard to see why filmmakers have returned there again and again over the years to capture the place’s unique ambiance on film. And, thanks to the bar’s definite New York vibe, it is most often portrayed as being in a city other than Los Angeles. In 2002’s Mr. Deeds, Casey’s stands in for the New York bar where Babe Bennett (aka Winona Ryder) went to drown her sorrows after being rejected by Longfellow Deeds (aka Adam Sandler).

In the first X-Files movie, Casey’s appeared as the Washington, D.C. bar where cutie Fox Mulder (aka David Duchovny) met Dr. Alvin Kurtzweil (aka Martin Landau) for the first time.

Ironically enough, though, for the scenes which supposedly took place outside of the bar, producers filmed at a different location entirely, yet they chose to use the actual Casey’s name on the exterior signage. Casey’s real-life exterior is pictured above and, as you can see, it is located below street-level and looks nothing like the exterior shown in The X-Files.

In 2006’s 16 Blocks, Casey’s stood in for the New York bar where Detective Jack Mosby (aka Bruce Willis) celebrated his birthday.

In Charlie Wilson’s War, Casey’s was featured as the Washington, D.C. watering hole where Congressman Charlie Wilson (aka Tom Hanks) took his lady friend Joanne Herring (aka Julia Roberts) for a drink before leaving on a trip to the Middle East.

In Good Night and Good Luck, Casey’s pops up as the New York bar where Edward R. Murrow (aka David Strathairn), Fred Friendly (aka George Clooney), and their co-workers wait to read the reviews of their just-aired See It Now television special about Senator Joseph McCarthy. Ironically enough, according to the movie’s DVD commentary, Casey’s was one of only two non-studio locations used in the filming of Good Night and Good Luck – the other being the Masonic Temple in Pasadena.

In 1998’s Fallen, Casey’s stands in for the Philadelphia bar where John Hobbes (aka Denzel Washington) met up with his cop friends Lou (aka James Gandolfini) and Jonesy (aka John Goodman) after the execution of a notorious serial killer.

In The Deep End of the Ocean, Casey’s stood in for the Chicago, Illinois restaurant where Detective Candy Bliss (aka Whoopi Goldberg) took Beth Cappadora (aka Michelle Pfeiffer) for a bite to eat a few weeks after Sam, Beth’s kidnapped son, was returned to her. Both the interior and the exterior of Casey’s were used in the flick.

Casey’s has also been featured in numerous episodes of the television series Mad Men, including the Season 1 episode titled “The Hobo Code”, where it stood in for P.J. Clarke’s, the famed, real life 125-year old watering hole located in Manhattan.

Casey’s also popped up in the Season 2 episode of Mad Men titled “For Those Who Think Young”, as the spot where Don Draper (aka Jon Hamm) is shown eating a steak and eggs breakfast after learning from his doctor that he is not in the greatest of health. The bar was also apparently featured in an episode of CSI, although I am not sure of which particular episode.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Casey’s Irish Pub is located at 613 South Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles. The restaurant is open from 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. each Monday through Wednesday, from 11:30 a.m. to 2 a.m. each Thursday through Saturday, and from 3 p.m. to 11 a.m. each Sunday. You can visit the official Casey’s website here.

June 9, 2010June 16, 2011

The Water Street Cafe from “Love Happens”

Just down the street from the former Tabu Boutique, the storefront that masqueraded as Eloise’s Garden in the 2009 movie Love Happens which I blogged about yesterday, is Water Street Cafe, the upscale restaurant where Eloise Chandler (aka Jennifer Aniston) and Burke Ryan (aka Aaron Eckhart) ate dinner during their extremely awkward first date at the beginning of the flick. I found this locale once again thanks to fellow stalker Owen who somehow managed to track down almost every single location featured in the movie. Unfortunately, though, because our time in Vancouver was limited (we were only in town for less than 24 hours as we wanted to spend a full two days in Seattle), while we were able to stalk the exterior of the Water Street Cafe, we weren’t able to grab a bite to eat there. As so often happens on vacation, there were just far too many locations on my To-Stalk list and not enough hours in the day to see them all. 🙁

In Love Happens, Eloise and Burke eat at a window-side table overlooking Cambie Street.

After finishing their meal, the two walk out of the restaurant’s main entrance on Water Street . . .

. . . and around the corner onto Cambie Street, where Burke confesses to Eloise that he hasn’t been on a date in over three years.

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The Water Street Cafe was first opened in 1988 by Domenique Sabatino. I’m quite bummed that we didn’t get a chance to eat there as the restaurant’s Italian-inspired menu looks pretty amazing, especially the Stuffed Pancetta Wrapped Chicken entree – a spinach stuffed chicken breast that is wrapped in pancetta and topped with brie. OH MY LORD does that sounds good!! 🙂 Especially since my dad is once again in the hospital and I’ve been existing solely on hospital cafeteria food for the past six days. Yeech!

Water Street Cafe is located directly across the street from the world-famous Vancouver Steam Clock, a large glass, antique-looking clock that is powered entirely via a combination of balance weights and steam. The clock was first built in 1977 by horologist Raymond Saunders and has been whistling and shooting out steam at fifteen minute intervals ever since. There are only six other working steam clocks in the entire world and the one in Gastown has been called Vancouver’s most photographed attraction. According to the Love Happens production notes, producers had to time the filming of the scene shot outside of the Water Street Cafe in accordance with the every-quarter-hour whistle of the clock. 🙂

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Water Street Cafe from Love Happens is located at 300 Water Street in the Gastown area of Vancouver, British Columbia. You can visit the Water Street Cafe website here. The Vancouver Steam Clock is located across the street at 305 Water Street.

May 19, 2010May 19, 2010

Mickey’s Diner from “The Mighty Ducks”

I thought I’d give y’all a break from the myriad of Beautiful Girls locations that I’ve been blogging about as of late by dedicating today’s post to a very famous and historic St. Paul restaurant named Mickey’s Diner. The diner is something of a Twin Cities landmark and pretty much every Native Minnesotan that my parents and I met while in the North Star State two weeks ago – from the concierge at our hotel to the barista at the local coffee shop – told us that we absolutely HAD to grab a bite to eat there. Ironically enough, though, like any good stalker, I already had Mickey’s at the very top of my Must-See-While-In-Minnesota list long before our plane even touched ground at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. I first found out about the diner a few weeks prior to my trip thanks to the the IMDB Mighty Ducks filming locations page and, since I loved the entire Mighty Ducks series – especially its leading man, Joshua Jackson – I was dying to see the place in person. Unfortunately though, because I had over twenty locations on my To-Stalk list, I didn’t have time to actually eat at Mickey’s, which is a real shame as I hear the food there is absolutely to die for! Not eating at Mickey’s is truly my only Minnesota stalking regret. 🙁 Ah well, there’s always next time!

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Mickey’s Diner was founded by friends David “Mickey” Crimmins and John “Bert” Mattson, who decided to purchase a dining car after attending the National Restaurant Convention in Chicago in 1937. The fifty foot by ten foot car, which was one of the first to be designed in the Art-Deco-style, was originally built in Elizabeth, New Jersey by the Jerry O’Mahoney Company. In 1939, the completed restaurant was transported by a flatbed railcar to its current location at the corner of West 7th and St. Peter Streets in Downtown St. Paul. It has been in continuous operation – 24 hours a day, 365 days a year – ever since and, after three generations, is still owned and operated by the Mattson family. On February 23, 1983, Mickey’s was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Mickey’s Diner is an incredibly cool little spot and the people there truly could NOT have been nicer. They answered all of my silly little questions about the filming that has taken place there over the years and allowed me to take all of the photographs of the interior that I wanted, even though I wasn’t actually dining there. I’m hardly the first stalker to visit the place, though. According to this article written by Chicago Sun-Times staff writer Dave Hoekstra, the restaurant’s current owner, Melissa Mattson, conducted a survey back in 1999 to determine how many of her patrons were actually movie buffs who had come to stalk the diner due to its many cinematic appearances. According to her findings, stalkers account for five percent of her customers. Love it!

In Disney’s The Mighty Ducks, Mickey’s was the spot where Charlie Conway’s (aka Joshua Jackson’s) mom Casey (aka Heidi Kling) worked. The diner also appeared in the movie’s sequels, D2: The Mighty Ducks and D3: The Mighty Ducks. And yes, that is a VERY young Joshua Jackson pictured in the above screen captures! 🙂

In 1996’s Jingle All The Way, Howard Langston (aka Arnold Schwarzenegger) pushed his car to Mickey’s Diner after running out of gas on a Minnesota bridge. And while the real exterior of the restaurant was used in the filming . . .

. . . the interior was actually a set that was recreated on a soundstage. As you can see in the above screen captures, the set was built to be much larger than the actual restaurant. In real life, the diner boasts four booths, which are located at the far west end of the dining car, 17 counter stools, and can only accommodate a maximum of 36 patrons.

The 2006 movie A Prairie Home Companion actually opens up at Mickey’s Diner, where private investigator Guy Noir (aka Kevin Kline) is shown feasting on “a grilled cheese sandwich with beans for a chaser” before heading across the street to work at the Fitzgerald Theatre one rainy Saturday night in St. Paul.

The diner is also the site of the movie’s closing scene, in which Guy, along with his friends Rhonda Johnson (aka Lilly Tomlin), Yolanda Johnson (aka Meryl Streep), Lola Johnson (aka Lindsay Lohan), Dusty (aka Woody Harrelson), GK (aka Garrison Keillor), and Lefty (aka John C. Reilly), discuss taking their former radio show on the road for a farewell tour. And apparently, quite a few of the stars of A Prairie Home Companion would stop into Mickey’s quite regularly to grab a bite to eat during their time on location in St. Paul. So cool! Mickey’s Diner has also been featured in the television series Rachel Ray’s Tasty Travels, Unwrapped, Roker on the Road, Alton Brown’s Feasting on Asphalt, and Jesse Ventura’s Minnesota. The diner is also something of a celebrity hotspot and has attracted the likes of Roseanne Barr, Tom Arnold, Liv Tyler, Bill Murray, Andy Garcia, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, John Stewart, the Beach Boys, New Kids on the Block, and Julio Iglesias, who once spontaneously serenaded a Mickey’s waitresses while on bended knee.

On a side note – While making A Prairie Home Companion, the movie’s stars, including Woody Harrelson, Lindsay Lohan, Lily Tomlin, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Kline, Virginia Madsen, and John C. Reilly, all bunked at the absolutely gorgeous St. Paul Hotel. The St. Paul was built in 1910 by the Minnesota-area architectural firm of Reed and Stern, who are perhaps best known for designing Grand Central Station in New York. The hotel is absolutely beautiful inside and if you are in the area, I HIGHLY recommend stalking it. The next time I visit Minnesota, I am DEFINITELY booking myself a room there! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Mickey’s Diner is located at 36 West 7th Street in St. Paul, Minnesota. The restaurant is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You can visit the Mickey’s Diner website here. The St. Paul Hotel is located at 350 Market Street, also in St. Paul, Minnesota. You can visit the St. Paul Hotel website here.

May 18, 2010May 17, 2010

The Johnson Inn Restaurant from “Beautiful Girls”

The other Beautiful Girls location that I was most excited about stalking (second only to the main houses used in the movie, of course), while in Minnesota two weeks ago, was the Johnson Inn – the local “Knight’s Ridge, Massachusetts” watering hole where Willie Conway (aka Timothy Hutton), Tommy “Birdman” Rowland (aka Matt Dillon), Paul Kirkwood (aka Michael Rapaport) and the rest of the gang hung out in the flick. Interestingly enough, two locations actually stood in for the Johnson Inn in Beautiful Girls – one location was used for the interior scenes, while a second one was used for the exteriors. Fellow stalker Owen tracked down both locales for me thanks to his Beautiful Girls master locations list, but, sadly, while the exterior location is still alive and well, the interior – a Minneapolis-area restaurant named Winfield Potters – closed its doors over a decade ago. 🙁 But because the locations were the site of one of my very favorite scenes from the movie, I just had to stalk both of them.

The above-mentioned favorite scene – and believe me, I know that over the past week I’ve described numerous Beautiful Girls scenes as my “favorite” 🙂 – involves professional piano player Willie Conway leading his buddies in a sing-a-long of the classic Neil Diamond song “Sweet Caroline”. And even though my dad has been a lifelong fan of the singer, before watching Beautiful Girls for the first time back in 1996, I don’t think I had ever heard any Neil Diamond songs in their entirety. But once I saw the Beautiful Girls “Sweet Caroline” scene, that was it for me – I suddenly, and unexpectedly, became a total ND junkie! Even now, fourteen years later, I am still a HUGE fan and my iPod is stocked with pretty much every song the guy ever recorded. All thanks to one very brief scene from a movie that premiered almost one and a half decades ago.

Because the “Sweet Caroline” scene had such a huge impact on me, I was absolutely DYING to stalk the spot where Willie C. and Company had so memorably belted out that “good times never seemed so good”. So, you can imagine my heartbreak when Owen emailed me to let me know that Winfield Potters restaurant, which did indeed used to have a piano in the bar area for patrons to play, was no longer. UGH! Such an incredible bummer! But I still just had to stalk the restaurant’s former location, which has since been turned into an office building for a company called Clientek.

According to a super nice and very informative waiter at a nearby restaurant my parents and I had dined at earlier that day, the Winfield Potters patio used to be quite the popular spot for Minnesota diners during the warm summer months. So, amazingly enough, once Clientek took over the space, they opted to keep the patio intact in order to host barbeques and events for their employees during temperate weather.

While there, I was absolutely FLOORED to discover a plaque honoring the former Winfield Potters location on the wall outside of the patio area. So darn cool! Of course, I think there should also be a notation on the plaque which touts the restaurant’s cinematic history, as well, but I digress.

I, of course, also peeked inside the Clientek offices to see if I could spot any small piece of the restaurant which still remained, but, sadly, there wasn’t anything. I can’t tell you how heartbreaking this particular stalk was for me, as I had so badly wanted to see Willie C.’s piano. Sigh.

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I am happy to report, though, that the Marine General Store, the small grocery store which was used for the exterior shots of the Johnson Inn, looks very much the same today as it did when Beautiful Girls was filmed back in 1996. There are some differences, of course, but for the most part, the location is very recognizable from the movie.

And, even though no filming actually took place there, I just had to stalk the interior of the General Store, as well. While doing so, I asked the girl at the front counter if the movie Beautiful Girls had been filmed on the premises, to which she said, “I don’t know. Let me check.” She then proceeded to pull up a list of about one hundred movies on her computer screen. Well, let me tell you, I took one look at that list and just about passed out from excitement and said, “WOW! How many movies have been filmed here?” The girl looked at me utterly flabbergasted and explained, “This is the list of movies we have for rent. I thought you were inquiring about a movie rental.” LOL As I mentioned in a previous post, I am rapidly discovering that most people in this world have never even heard of Beautiful Girls, including, apparently, people who work at locations where filming of the movie actually took place!

Anyway, the girl at the counter, who was very nice, directed me to the manager of the store, who, amazingly enough, had actually heard of Beautiful Girls and even knew about its filming. She told me that the big fight scene between Tommy “Birdman” Rowland and Steve Rossmore (aka Sam Robards) at the end of the film took place in the General Store’s back parking lot.

Unfortunately, though, there was a van parked in front of the stairway that Tommy walks down in the scene, so I couldn’t get a perfect shot of it.

You can watch the Beautiful Girls “Sweet Caroline” scene by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding these locations for me! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The exterior of the Johnson Inn Restaurant from Beautiful Girls is the Marine General Store, which is located at 101 Judd Street in Marine on Saint Croix, about twelve miles north of Stillwater. The interior of the Johnson Inn was the former Winfield Potters restaurant, which used to be located at 212 2nd Street SE in Minneapolis.

May 14, 2010May 13, 2010

The River Oasis Cafe from “Beautiful Girls”

Another Stillwater, Minnesota location that my family and I stalked last week was the River Oasis Cafe from fave movie Beautiful Girls. And I’m really hoping that my fellow stalkers are not yet sick of reading about Beautiful Girls locations, ‘cause there are still quite a few of them that I’ve yet to blog about. 😉 Anyway, I found out about this locale thanks to the master locations list that fellow stalker Owen purveyed for me before I left on my trip to the North Star State. Thank you, Owen! And even though the River Oasis Cafe only appeared in one fairly brief scene in the movie, I just had to stalk the place. Especially since my mom was absolutely starving upon our arrival in Stillwater and mentioned that she wanted to dine at a “local greasy spoon”, to which I said, “I know just the place!” 🙂

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The River Oasis Cafe appeared in the very beginning of Beautiful Girls, in one of the opening scenes in which Tommy “Birdman” Rowland (aka Matt Dillon), Paul Kirkwood (aka Michael Rapaport), and Kev (aka Max Perlich) are shown eating an early morning breakfast after finishing that day’s snow plow rounds. And I am very happy to report that the restaurant looks much the same in person as it did onscreen in the movie!

Except for the large billboard which stands in the cafe’s front parking lot, though, which was covered over during the filming to read “Welcome to Knight’s Ridge”, the fictional town where Beautiful Girls was set.

Because a wide shot of the interior of the River Oasis Cafe was never shown in the movie, I wasn’t exactly sure of where Paul, Tommy, and Kev sat during the scene, but thankfully our SUPER nice waitress was able to point me in the right direction. 🙂

And while some people were already occupying the Beautiful Girls’ booth when we first arrived at the restaurant, as soon as they left I immediately ran over and snagged it so that I could snap a pic in the exact spot where Matt Dillon and Max Perlich sat during the filming. 🙂

Ironically enough, while we were dining my dad randomly took a photograph of the above-pictured sign which hangs near the River Oasis Cafe’s front door. So, imagine my surprise when I re-watched Beautiful Girls upon returning home from Minnesota and saw that very same sign hanging in pretty much the very same spot near the restaurant’s front door in the scene in which Paul is shown making a phone call to his former girlfriend Jan (aka Martha Plimpton). Nice work, dad!!! 🙂

While we were stalking the Cafe, my parents and I had the pleasure of meeting Craig Beemer – the restaurant’s owner/dishwasher, as he likes to call himself 🙂 – who truly could NOT have been nicer. Not only did he agree to pose for a photograph with me for my blog, but he also snapped a pic of me sitting in the Beautiful Girls’ booth to put on the River Oasis Cafe’s “Faces of Oasis” Facebook page. 🙂 He even seemed amenable to my suggestion of putting a plaque on the Beautiful Girls’ booth so that diners would be aware of the movie magic that took place in that spot just over fourteen years ago! So, Craig, if you’re reading this, I fully expect to see that plaque in place the next time I’m in Stillwater! 🙂 I honestly cannot recommend stalking the River Oasis Cafe enough – it’s a fabulous restaurant, which serves up some excellent food, and the staff truly could not be nicer! Love it! Love it! Love it!

On a side note – The owner of Willie’s house from Beautiful Girls, which I blogged about on Wednesday, mentioned that his neighbors always joke about creating a tour of all of the movie’s locations in the Stillwater area. I told him what a FABULOUS idea I thought that was, but I don’t think he took me seriously. But, let me tell you, even though I’ve already visited pretty much every spot which appeared in the movie, I would SO sign up for that tour.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location for me! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The River Oasis Cafe from Beautiful Girls is located at 806 Main Street South in Stillwater, Minnesota. You can visit the River Oasis Cafe’s Facebook page here.