famous restaurants – Page 5

June 15, 2018May 29, 2020

Tavern on the Green from “Ghostbusters”

I adhere to a “more is more” philosophy. There’s nothing wrong with a little extra! So I, of course, was a huge fan of the landmark Central Park restaurant Tavern on the Green during the time that it was run by the LeRoy family. Though many referred to the place as tacky, garish and over-the-top, I found it nothing short of magical and was devastated when it shuttered in 2010, its whimsical décor and furnishings auctioned off to the highest bidders, its famous Crystal Room dismantled piece by sparkling piece. New York, in my mind, would never be the same. When the property was re-opened under new leadership a few years later, I was curious how the space would compare to its prior self and promptly added it to my NYC To- Stalk List. The Grim Cheaper and I finally made it there for cocktails and appetizers, our good friends Kim and Katie in tow, during our April 2016 trip to the Big Apple. While definitely lacking in extra, the revamped Tavern on the Green did not disappoint. So even though I briefly covered the eatery in a 2008 write-up, I figured it was definitely worthy of a repost.

The Victorian Gothic-style building that now houses Tavern on the Green was originally constructed in 1870 (yes, 1870!) as a sheepfold (aka a sheep pen) for the hundreds of sheep that called Central Park home.

In 1934, Parks Commissioner Robert Moses decided the sprawling Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould-designed structure would better serve as a restaurant and set about repurposing it. The sheep were sent to Prospect Park in Brooklyn, their former barn given a massive renovation, and, voilà, Tavern on the Green was born.

Though popular, the moderately-priced pub went through several ownership changes and remodels in the years that followed. Finally, in 1974, it was purchased by Warner LeRoy, son of The Wizard of Oz producer Mervyn LeRoy and Doris Warner (daughter of Warner Bros. founder Harry Warner), who began an extensive $10 million remodel and expansion of the site that took three years to complete. The result of his efforts was a kitschy, fanciful masterpiece that had to be seen to be believed.

Thanks to LeRoy’s vision, everyday at Tavern on the Green was like Christmas. The 27,000-square-foot eatery was marked by Tiffany stained glass, Baccarat crystal chandeliers, topiaries, massive murals, hand-painted ceilings, mirrored walls, and thousands upon thousands of twinkle lights. The site’s most famous dining area, the Crystal Room, a glass-encased space overlooking the restaurant’s terrace and Central Park, was the glittering cherry on top. Sadly, I failed to take any proper photographs of Tavern on the Green during my visits, but you can check out some images of what it looked like during LeRoy’s tenure here.

It did not take long for Tavern on the Green to become an icon – a restaurant synonymous with the city itself and a must-see spot for locals, tourists and celebrities alike. Just a few of the luminaries who dined there over the years include Grace Kelly, John Lennon, Jennifer Aniston, Liza Minnelli, Seth Meyers, Jon Hamm, Christie Brinkley, George Clooney, Liv Tyler, Drew Barrymore, Alec Guinness, Christian Dior, Martha Stewart, Howard Stern, and Beth Ostrosky.

When Warner passed away in 2001, his wife and daughter took over operations and the place remained as popular and profitable as ever. In 2006, Tavern on the Green was one of the highest grossing restaurants in the U.S., second only to Tao Las Vegas. Sadly, the eatery was hit hard by the economy in 2008 and the following year it was announced that the Parks Department had opted not to renew the LeRoys’ lease. The family served their last meal on the premises on New Year’s Eve 2009 and a massive auction was held shortly thereafter in which all of the colorful décor was sold off. The space subsequently served as a visitor center, of all things, until 2012 when it was taken over by Philadelphia restauranteurs Jim Caiola and David Salama, who began a two-year, $20 million renovation. The new Tavern on the Green opened in April 2014.

Though undeniably beautiful, the restaurant is a far cry from its predecessor. Understated and classic, marked by wood detailing and patterned banquettes, the new Tavern is sleeker and more refined than the LeRoy version. While I did enjoy dining there, I couldn’t help but miss the old Tavern, with all of its over-the-top whimsy. Regardless, I am so thankful that the place is once again open to hungry patrons. The Crystal Room may have long since been razed, the twinkle lights removed from the trees, and the paper lanterns cleared away from the terrace, but the site does still retain some of its former magic.

I really think Caiola and Salama need to reinstate the twinkle lights, though. As I said above, there’s nothing wrong with a little extra – and the Edison bulbs currently strung across the patio just aren’t cutting it.

Thanks to Tavern on the Green’s unique beauty, location managers flocked to it during the Warner days. The eatery most famously appeared in Ghostbusters. It is there that Louis Tully (Rick Moranis) runs while being chased by the “terror dog” and unsuccessfully tries to catch the attention of the patrons inside in the 1984 hit.

Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) heads to the bathroom at Tavern on the Green to meet with the FBI and hand over his taped conversation with Gordon Gecko (Michael Douglas) at the end of 1987’s Wall Street.

CC Bloom (Bette Midler) and John Pierce (John Heard) take Hillary Whitney Essex (Barbara Hershey) and Michael Essex (James Read) to Tavern on the Green for dinner in 1988’s Beaches.

I am 99.9% certain, though, that only the exterior of the restaurant appeared in the movie and that interiors were filmed elsewhere, likely at an eatery in L.A.

That same year, Tavern on the Green was featured in the opening scene of the comedy Arthur 2: On the Rocks. It is there that Linda Marolla Bach (Liza Minnelli) tells Arthur Bach (Dudley Moore) that she cannot have children.

In 2001’s Made, Bobby (Jon Favreau) and Ricky (Vince Vaughn) meet up with Ruiz (Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs) at Tavern on the Green to discuss a money drop.

Alfie (Jude Law) picks up Nikki (Sienna Miller) and her friends in his cab outside of Tavern on the Green one lonely Christmas Eve night in the 2004 movie Alfie.

Boy’s (Anton Yelchin) Senior Prom takes place at Tavern on the Green in 2009’s New York, I Love You.

Post-closing, Tavern played a central role in the 2011 comedy Mr. Popper’s Penguins as the restaurant Mr. Popper (Jim Carrey) tried to buy from Mrs. Van Gundy (Angela Lansbury). Only the exterior of the site was utilized in the filming, though.

Because the space had already been transformed into a visitor center and the Crystal Room had long since been dismantled by the time filming took place, the restaurant’s interior was re-imagined on a soundstage for the shoot. According to the movie’s production notes, production designer Stuart Wurtzel, “re-created the wood-paneled front vestibule of the Tavern, the famous Crystal Room with its ornate chandeliers and flower-filled décor, and approximately twelve feet of Central Park so the views outside the plate-glass windows would look authentic. ‘It’s a sort of emotional composite of how people remember it,’ he says.”

Following its 2014 re-opening, Tavern popped up in the Season 1 episode of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt titled “Kimmy is Bad at Math!” as the spot where Logan Beekman (Adam Campbell) took Kimmy Schmidt (Ellie Kemper) on a date. While there, she exclaims, “I can’t believe I’m at the Ghostbusters restaurant!”

It was also there that Luann de Lesseps met with ex-boyfriend Jacques Azoulay to discuss their upcoming comedy show in the Season 12 episode of The Real Housewives of New York titled “Just the Sip,” which aired in 2020.

And while I thought that the Tavern’s lantern-strung terrace was the spot where Mr. Big (Chris Noth) and Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) dined in the Season 2 episode of Sex and the City titled “The Caste System,” I contacted the episode’s director, Allison Anders, who informed me that filming actually took place on the rear patio of a private house on the Upper West Side that was dressed to look like a restaurant. Of the re-designed space, she said, “I was so thrilled with the result and that all these years later it rang true for you makes me very happy indeed.”

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Tavern on the Green, from Ghostbusters, is located at Central Park West and 67th Street on New York’s Upper West Side. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

June 6, 2018June 6, 2018

Don Antonio’s from “The Hills” and “Life in Pieces”

I am a creature of habit, so it should come as no surprise that Don Antonio’s – the subject of my very first blog post back in 2007 – has remained my favorite Mexican restaurant ever since I first set foot inside it over a decade ago. I initially learned about the Sawtelle-area eatery thanks to its many appearances on MTV’s The Hills and it did not take long for the place to become a staple in my and the Grim Cheaper’s dinner repertoire. We ate there so often, in fact, that I used to lament that I was developing a bit of a belly, which I dubbed “Little Baby Don Antonio.” Though we no longer live in Los Angeles, we still make it a point to hit up D.A.’s whenever we are in town. So I was floored when my friend Lavonna recently informed me that the place had appeared in an early episode of Life in Pieces, a show she had just started watching. I happened to be in L.A. a few days later and figured a pit stop at Don Antonio’s was in order so that I could do a proper re-post on the restaurant.

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Don Antonio’s has been a Westside institution ever since it was established by Antonio and Amalia Hernandez way back in 1982.

Very little of the place has been changed over the years.

The low-lit interior is comprised of three main dining rooms, the most popular of which is known as the Cave Room, for obvious reasons.

Marked by faux mud-caked walls and man-made stalactites, the cavernous space is where Spencer Pratt (aka the current Snapchatter of the Year – if you aren’t following him on Snap, you really need to!) and Heidi Montag typically sat while dining on The Hills.

Don Antonio’s made its inaugural Hills appearance in the Season 2 premiere titled “Out with the Old . . . “ In the episode, Spencer takes Heidi to the eatery for their first real date. Upon pulling up to the valet stand, Heidi says, “How’d you ever find this place? It’s like in the middle of nowhere!” To which Spencer replies, “This is my spot! I’ve been eating here since I was like 14.” In a 2017 InStyle magazine article (which opens with the line, “Spencer Pratt enters Don Antonio’s like he’s Donald Trump at the 21 Club.”), Spencer gives a bit of a different story. Explaining how he discovered D.A.’s, he says, “When I was 16, there used to be a muffler place down the street where I used to drop off my car. My older sister, Kristen, brought me here initially. After that, I was hooked. I brought all my homies and we made it the spot. I used to take meetings in the back. Then, for our first TV date on The Hills, [the producers] were like, “Where do you wanna take [Heidi]?” and I was like, “Obviously Don Antonio’s.”

The restaurant went on to appear in numerous episodes of The Hills, including Season 2’s “Everybody Falls” in which Spencer and Heidi discuss moving in together over a steaming plate of fajitas . . .

. . . and Season 3’s “What Happens in Vegas . . . “ in which the duo’s anniversary celebration is interrupted when Heidi gets called in to work.

A myriad of the couple’s press interviews have also taken place at Don Antonio’s, including the InStyle one I linked to above, as well as one for the cover story of Rolling Stone’s May 11th, 2008 issue, which you can read here.

Image result for rolling stone may 2008

As Lavonna informed me, Don Antonio’s was featured in the Season 1 episode of Life in Pieces titled “Interruptus Date Breast Movin’.”

In the episode, Matt (Thomas Sadoski) follows Spencer’s lead by taking his boss, Colleen (Angelique Cabral), to Don Antonio’s for their first date.

The duo choose not to go the Spencer and Heidi route of eating in the Cave Room, though, and instead dine in Don Antonio’s main room, which boasts a colorful fish tank.

No matter which room you opt to dine in, a meal at Don Antonio’s simply can’t be beat! As Spencer told Heidi during their initial visit, the restaurant serves “the best Mexican food you’ve ever had in your entire life!”

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

Big THANK YOU to Lavonna for telling me about Don Antonio’s Life in Pieces appearance.

P.S. Interested in more Life in Pieces locations? Be sure to check out my friend Michael’s fabulous guest post on the three main houses used on the series here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Don Antonio’s, from The Hills and Life in Pieces, is located at 11755 West Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles’ Sawtelle neighborhood. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

May 2, 2018May 2, 2018

Tom’s Restaurant from “Seinfeld”

Considering it is one of New York’s best-known film locations, you’d think I would have stalked Tom’s Restaurant, aka Monk’s Café from Seinfeld, ages ago. That was not the case, though. While the Morningside Heights eatery had been on my To-Stalk List ever since my first visit to Manhattan back in 2005, due to the fact that it is located all way at 112th and Broadway, it kept getting pushed to the back burner. Then, while doing research prior to my April 2016 trip to the Big Apple, I came across the following passage in the book The Best Things to Do in New York – “As a rule, comfort food gets better the father uptown you go, and the melts, shakes, and fried chicken at Tom’s are close to perfect.” Near-perfect fried chicken? Say no more! I was not going to pass that up! So straight to the top of my To-Stalk List the restaurant went and the Grim Cheaper and I headed right on over there with our friend Lavonna one of our first days in town.

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Tom’s Restaurant was originally founded way back in 1940 by Greece native Tom Glikas.

He didn’t hold onto the place for long, though. A scant six years later, Glikas sold his namesake eatery to the Zoulis family who continue to own and operate it to this day.

Still situated on the same busy corner on which it was originally established, little of the restaurant has changed throughout the course of its almost 80-year history.

The quality Greek and American offerings, massive menu, affordable prices, and late-night hours turned the diner into a neighborhood staple from the get-go and it remains such today, with locals, tourists, and students from nearby Columbia University alike all popping in for superb comfort food, most of it made from scratch.

Even celebrities have been known to drop by. Over the years such luminaries as William Hurt, John McCain, Larry David, Madeleine Albright, Christopher Reeve, Mike Tyson, Richard Dreyfuss, Bruce Willis, Danny Aiello, and Barack Obama have all been seen dining on the premises.

Considering Tom’s long history in New York, it is not surprising that the place found its way onscreen. On Seinfeld, the restaurant popped up pretty much weekly as the regular hangout of Jerry Seinfeld (played by himself), Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), George Costanza (Jason Alexander), and Kramer (Michael Richards). Though it is arguably the show’s most iconic location, its familiar exterior did not make an appearance until the Season 2 premiere titled “The Ex-Girlfriend.”

Prior to that, the outside of the gang’s favorite coffee shop was only featured on one occasion – in the pilot. For that episode, titled “The Seinfeld Chronicles,” a different exterior was utilized. Located at 208 Varick Street in the West Village, the site is currently home to a McDonald’s (pictured below via Google Street View), but it housed an independent diner at the time that the series started filming. Though the signage shown on Seinfeld reads “Pete’s Luncheonette,” I am fairly certain that was not the establishment’s actual name.

The same restaurant was also utilized in the 1984 comedy The Muppets Take Manhattan as the spot where Kermit the Frog lands a day job while trying to get his Manhattan Melodies musical onto Broadway. In looking at the imagery of Pete’s from both productions, I am fairly certain that what was shown in “The Seinfeld Chronicles” was just recycled footage from The Muppets.

Back to Tom’s. As you can see in the screen capture as compared to the photograph below, though some aspects of the eatery’s exterior, including the windows and wood framing, have changed since Seinfeld was shot, the place is still very recognizable from its onscreen stint. The interior is another story, however.

Only the outside of Tom’s Restaurant appeared on Seinfeld. As is the norm with sitcoms, which are shot in front of a live audience, all of the show’s interior filming took place on studio-built sets. In this case, the Monk’s Café scenes were lensed on a soundstage (Stage 19 during Seasons 1-3 and Stage 9 during Seasons 4-9) at CBS Studio Center, located at 4024 Radford Avenue in Studio City.

I got to see portions of the Monk’s set, including a booth and a wall, when I visited the Warner Bros. “Television: Out of the Box” exhibit at The Paley Center for Media in 2012. (Though, considering many of the items on display weren’t exactly authentic, I cannot say with certainty that the artifacts pictured below are indeed legit.)

The actual interior of Tom’s does not resemble the Monk’s set in the slightest, which made seeing the restaurant in person rather jarring.

Though the place does have a counter . . .

. . . and booth seating, it looks nothing like the spot made famous for its big salads.

While not a big restaurant by any means, Tom’s is also significantly larger than Monk’s. Regardless of the disparities, it was still a huge thrill to finally see the site in person.

And I am happy to report that the assertion made in The Best Things to Do in New York was not wrong. While I opted for chicken strips instead of the fried chicken meal (I never pass up chicken strips when I see them on a menu), they were outstanding – as was the ranch dressing they were served with!

For those wondering how the name “Monk’s Café” came to be, per an article Jerry Seinfeld wrote for New York magazine, the moniker was rather uninspired. He says, “We called the coffee shop Monk’s because there was a Thelonious Monk poster in the office where Larry [David] and I were writing, and we just needed a name.”

Tom’s Restaurant also appeared in the Season 3 episode of The Bionic Woman titled “Long Live the King,” which aired in 1978.

Because The Bionic Woman was filmed in Los Angeles, the eatery was only utilized for establishing shots in the episode. The scene taking place inside the restaurant was lensed elsewhere – either at a actual L.A.-area café or a studio-built set.

Italian director Gian Franco Morini made the eatery the subject of his 2014 film, Tom’s Restaurant – A Documentary About Everything.

That same year, Jerry Seinfeld paid homage to his former series by shooting a Season 3 episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee at Tom’s along with fellow alums Jason Alexander and Wayne Knight.

The episode, titled “The Over-Cheer,” finally gave us a shot of George and Jerry sitting inside the actual Tom’s.

Not only is the eatery a filming location, but it also inspired a popular song – Suzanne Vega’s 1987 ditty “Tom’s Diner.” As the singer explained to The Guardian in a 2016 article, “When I was at college in Manhattan in the early 1980s, I used to go to Tom’s Restaurant on 112th and Broadway for coffee. I liked its ordinariness: it was the kind of place you’d find on any corner. One day, I was in there mulling over a conversation I’d had with a photographer friend, Brian Rose, about romantic alienation. He told me he saw his life as if through a pane of glass. I came out of Tom’s with the idea of writing a song about an alienated character who just sees things happening around him. I was walking down Broadway and the melody popped into my head. The line about the actor ‘who had died while he was drinking’ was true: William Holden’s obituary had been in that morning’s paper. The ‘bells of the cathedral’ were those of St. John the Divine up the street, though I made up the bit about the woman ‘fixing her stockings’ and changed ‘restaurant’ to ‘diner’ to make it rhyme.” A fan named David Hammar did a deep dive into figuring out the exact day Vega penned the song (a man after my own heart!) and posted the results of his quest on Suzanne’s official website. Parsing through old newspaper archives and weather reports, Hammar pinpoints the date as November 18th, 1981. Well, sort of. The article makes for a fabulous read. You can check it out here. (For whatever reason, the photo below was not actually taken at Tom’s Restaurant, but at a different establishment.)

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Tom’s Restaurant, aka Monk’s Café from Seinfeld, is located at 2880 Broadway in New York’s Morningside Heights neighborhood. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

April 25, 2018May 29, 2018

Saddle Peak Lodge from “Bones”

There is no shortage of historic restaurants in Los Angeles that have appeared onscreen. Despite their abundance, I thought I was well-versed on pretty much all of them. One I went completely unaware of for years, though, was Saddle Peak Lodge in Calabasas. I only learned of the 100-plus-year-old eatery in March 2013 while searching for the general store featured in the Season 2 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Camping Trip.” During my hunt, I came across screen captures of a 1960 Perry Mason episode lensed at Saddle Peak Lodge and the structure shown looked quite a bit like the market I was trying to track down, so I did some further digging. Come to find out, the restaurant was expanded and remodeled significantly in the years following the Perry Mason shoot and most definitely was not the spot I had been searching for, but I was intrigued nonetheless – especially when I found out it had appeared in countless productions. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to see it shortly thereafter. (Though I am happy to report that the location of the 90210 general store was eventually unearthed as 34813 Bouquet Canyon Road in Santa Clarita, the structure was sadly torn down in 2003.)

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Saddle Peak Lodge was originally established as a rustic one-room general store/roadhouse at the turn of the 19th Century. Situated along a well-traveled road in the Santa Monica Mountains, visitors would pop in for a quick bite to eat or to pick up basic sundries while en route to their respective destinations.

Named in honor of a peak located nearby, the small market (which you can see an early photograph of here) stocked little besides sandwiches, drinks and basic goods.

It did not take long for the place to become a popular respite for the Hollywood set thanks to the many movie ranches located nearby. Such stars as Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and Milton Berle were all known to pop in when filming in the area. In later years, Richard Burton, Ernest Borgnine, and members of the Rat Pack were frequent guests.

In the 1960s, Saddle Peak Lodge was purchased by Bud and Jean Simmert who transformed the establishment into a larger, more upscale restaurant. It went through further renovations and expansions in 1985 after being acquired by Grand American Fare Inc., the enterprise that also founded the Oar House Bar & Buffalo Chips Restaurant in Santa Monica (which later became O’Brien’s Irish Pub & Restaurant, made famous in The Truth About Cats & Dogs). The company’s owner Al Ehringer was responsible for creating the lodge-inspired aesthetic that still graces the eatery today.

The stone and wood space is both decidedly rustic and elegant at the same time.

And its patio is one of the most gorgeous in all of L.A.

As such, Saddle Peak Lodge has become one of the area’s most popular wedding and event venues.

Owned by Al’s ex-wife Ann Ehringer since 1992, the restaurant boasts countless warm, homey touches that make dining there feel more like being in a friend’s home than a public space.

Antique books . . .

. . . unique lamps . . .

. . . and other curiosities can be found at every turn.

Saddle Peak Lodge, which can host 225 hungry patrons at a time, has won countless accolades and awards over the years including the AAA Four Diamond Award, Wine Spectator’s Award of Excellence, and a Michelin star.

And the restaurant is even more popular with celebrities than ever. Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there in recent years include Molly Ringwald, Selena Gomez, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone, and Titus Welliver. Bruce Jenner even proposed to Kris Kardashian at Saddle Peak Lodge in 1991.

The hostess that the GC and I encountered upon entering Saddle Peak Lodge could not have been nicer and invited me to take all the photos of the place that I wanted even though we were not dining on the premises. She was also kind enough to fill us in on some of the site’s filming history. I was most excited to hear about the restaurant’s appearance on my grandma’s favorite show, Bones. In the Season 6 episode titled “The Truth in the Myth,” which aired in 2011, the eatery portrays the Pine Tree Manor hotel where Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) investigate the suspicious death of television host Lee Coleman (Leigh McCloskey). Both the exterior . . .

. . . and interior of the restaurant were featured in the episode.

In the 1955 drama The Fast and the Furious, Connie Adair (Dorothy Malone) stops for lunch at Saddle Peak Lodge and winds up getting kidnapped by escaped fugitive Frank Webster (John Ireland).

I am unsure if the interior shown in the movie was Saddle Peak’s actual interior or a set.

As I mentioned earlier, the restaurant was featured in a 1960 episode of Perry Mason. In Season 3’s “The Case of the Prudent Prosecutor,” Jefferson Pike (J. Pat O’Malley) fakes being shot outside of Saddle Peak Lodge.

Harry Baldwin (Ray Milland) and his family stop at Saddle Peak to use the phone and grab some provisions after learning that the city of Los Angeles has been destroyed in a nuclear attack in the 1962 thriller Panic in Year Zero!

As was the case with The Fast and the Furious, I am unsure if the interior shown onscreen was the restaurant’s actual interior or a set.

In the Season 6 episode of Dynasty titled “The Decision,” which aired in 1985, Miles Colby (Maxwell Caulfield) dines with Fallon Carrington Colby (Emma Samms) at Saddle Peak Lodge.

Thanks to fellow stalker Colette, I learned that Saddle Peak Lodge masked as Sable Mountain Ski Resort, where Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) found herself snowed in with an Olympic ski team in the Season 5 episode of Murder, She Wrote titled “Snow White, Blood Red,” which aired in 1988.

Larry David (playing himself) discusses basketball with friends over dinner at Saddle Creek in the Season 2 episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm titled “Shaq,” which aired in 2001.

In the Season 3 episode of Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica titled “Newlyweds Two Year Anniversary,” which aired in 2005, Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson celebrate their anniversary at Saddle Creek Lodge.

Saddle Peak pops up in the “Dinner with Rush” segment of the 2010 documentary Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, which you can watch here.

In the Season 4 episodes of Awkward. titled “Snow Job: Part 1” and “Snow Job: Part 2″,” which aired in 2014, the restaurant portrays the hotel where the Palos Hills High School gang stays while on the senior ski trip.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Saddle Peak Lodge, from “The Truth in the Myth” episode of Bones, is located at 419 Cold Canyon Road in Calabasas. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

April 9, 2018April 6, 2018

Gray’s Papaya from “Sex and the City”

You will never catch anyone calling me a “foodie.” My palate leans much more toward comfort than epicurean with meals of choice consisting of chicken strips and ranch dressing, turkey and mashed potatoes, and hot dogs. I am a hot dog fanatic. My favorite spot to grab a ‘furter is Gray’s Papaya in New York. Their franks are simply sublime! I’ve sung the chain’s praises a couple of time on this blog – first in 2007 and then again in 2009. I got a bit of my reporting wrong in the later, though, when I stated that a scene from the Season 5 episode of Sex and the City titled “Plus One Is the Loneliest Number” had been lensed at the company’s Upper West Side outpost. A reader named Sabrina corrected me, commenting that SATC had actually been shot at the Greenwich Village Gray’s. As she explained, “You can see the phone box right next to the exit Carrie uses.” So I took a closer look at the episode and Sabrina was indeed correct! In “Plus One Is the Loneliest Number,” Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) grabs a dog at the GP located at 402 Sixth Avenue. So I immediately added the address to my New York To-Stalk List. Sadly, by the time I finally made it there in 2016, the eatery had closed and a Liquiteria juice bar had taken its place. I still figured it was worth blogging about, though.

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For those who have never had the pleasure of downing a Gray’s Papaya frank, it truly is an experience. The no-frills, walk-up hot dog stand was originally founded in 1973 by Paul Gray – a former employee of rival chain Papaya King – on the corner of Broadway and West 72nd Street on NYC’s Upper West Side. The eatery quickly became a hit with New Yorkers who loved the quality of the dogs and the bargain prices. It wasn’t long before additional outposts popped up around Manhattan, including the one at 402 Sixth Avenue which opened its doors in 1986. Though I never visited it, you can check out what it looked like when it was still in operation thanks to the archived Google Street View images from June 2011 below.

Sadly, though still insanely popular (you’d be hard-pressed to find any Gray’s location that is not crammed with people 24/7), the Greenwich Village outpost shuttered in January 2014 due to a rent hike. It followed the closing of another Gray’s at 539 8th Avenue in Midtown in February 2011 for the same reason, leaving the UWS eatery as the chain’s sole locale.

Things appear to be on the upswing, though. Not only is the flagship UWS outpost still flourishing 45 years after its inception, but a new Gray’s was opened in 2016 at 612 Eighth Avenue in Midtown. Customers have been lining up for the popular Recession Special – two dogs and a papaya juice drink or soda for $4.95 – ever since.

In “Plus One Is the Loneliest Number,” which aired in 2002, a “palpably lonely” Carrie attends the party for her book release sans a significant other. While heading home from the soiree, Carrie’s limo driver (Dena Atlantic) learns that Carrie has just written a book and insists on taking her somewhere to celebrate. The two hit up Gray’s Papaya (long known for being open 24 hours) and when the driver informs the man taking their order about Carrie’s new book, he insists on giving them the dogs for free. The scene was inspired by SATC writer Cindy Chupack’s first Emmy win. Of the experience, she is quoted in Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell as saying, “I didn’t have a date for the Emmys the year we won, and I lost our Sex and the City people at one point during the night, so I felt very ‘minus one’ until my driver said, ‘You won an Emmy? We have to celebrate this!’ and took me through a McDonald’s drive-through and told the guys in the window, ‘She won an Emmy!’ They gave me a free chocolate shake. The limo driver we cast in the episode was very much like the driver I had – although in the episode, Carrie goes to Gray’s Papaya, which is more New York and is actually a favorite place of Sarah Jessica’s.”

Though very little of Gray’s exterior is visible in the scene and what is shown is only via a blurry camera pan, as you can see in the screen captures below as compared to the Google Street View images, the restaurant’s red trim . . .

. . . as well as the location and configuration of the side doors are a match to what appeared onscreen.

And, sure enough, there’s that phone box that Sabrina mentioned.

The Greenwich Village Gray’s has popped up in a couple of other productions, as well. In the 2008 comedy Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Thom (Aaron Yoo) calls Nick (Michael Cera) while standing outside of the eatery to let him know that he has lost Caroline (Ari Graynor).

And Zoe (Jennifer Lopez) takes Stan (Alex O’Loughlin) to grab take-out there in the 2010 romcom The Back-up Plan.

The other Gray’s outposts are popular filming locales, as well. In the Season 3 episode of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations titled “New York City,” which aired in 2007, Bourdain heads to the now defunct Gray’s at 539 8th Avenue (which you can see a photo of here), his “favorite local eatery,” for a late-night Recession Special. While there he extols the restaurant, saying, “But man, when I start missing New York, you know, this is one of the things I miss. Ah, come on! A good Gray’s dog!”

It is the original Gray’s Papaya on the Upper West Side (pictured below) that is the most popular with location scouts, though.

The Warriors encounter members of rival street gang The Baseball Furies outside of the Upper West Side Gray’s in the 1979 crime drama The Warriors.

Doug Ireland (Michael J. Fox) brings Andy Hart (Gabrielle Anwar) there for a quick bite in the 1993 romcom For Love or Money.

In 1995’s Die Hard with a Vengeance, John McClane (Bruce Willis) and Zeus Carver (Samuel L. Jackson) take a phone call from Simon Gruber (Jeremy Irons) at the payphone across the street from the UWS Gray’s.

Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) briefly dines with Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) there shortly before heading out to meet NY152 at the end of 1998’s You’ve Got Mail.

The last time I visited New York, my friends Kim, Katie, Lavonna and I tried to pose for a photo a la Kathleen and Joe in Gray’s front window, but the reflection wreaked havoc with the image. If you look closely at the screen captures above, it actually appears that the restaurant’s window was removed for the filming of the You’ve Got Mail scene.

Lance Barton (Chris Rock) takes Sontee Jenkins (Regina King) for a meal at the UWS Gray’s in the 2001 comedy Down to Earth.

The eatery was shown in an establishing shot in the Season 1 episode of How I Met Your Mother titled “The Limo,” which aired in 2005, though no actual filming took place there.

Michael J. Fox returned to Gray’s in 2013 to shoot a scene for the pilot episode of his self-titled series The Michael J. Fox Show, in which Mike Henry (Fox) and Harris Green (Wendell Pierce) discuss the possibility of Mike returning to work while standing across the street from the restaurant.

The restaurant chain was also mentioned in the Season 4 episode of Glee titled “Makeover” and was a pivotal plot element in the 1997 romcom Fools Rush In, though neither production did any filming on the premises. And while several websites claim that the Season 3 episode of Louie titled “Telling Jokes/Set Up” and the 1998 romance Crossing Delancey were filmed at Gray’s, both were actually lensed at Papaya King outposts.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Gray’s Papaya from the “Plus One Is the Loneliest Number” episode of Sex and the City was formerly located at 402 Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village. Today, the site is home to a Liquiteria. The Gray’s that appeared in Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations was formerly located at 539 8th Avenue in Midtown. That spot now houses a Cohen’s Fashion Optical. The Upper West Side Gray’s, from You’ve Got Mail, is still in operation and can be found at 2090 Broadway. A second Gray’s outpost is located at 612 8th Avenue in Midtown. Gray’s Papaya restaurants are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

March 14, 2018April 19, 2018

Hop Louie from “I Love You, Man”

Los Angeles suffered numerous iconic restaurant closures in 2017 – Auntie Em’s Kitchen in Eagle Rock, Happy Trails Catering in Pasadena (I was particularly heartbroken over that one), and the Formosa Cafe in West Hollywood (though it is set to re-open this summer), just to name a few. 2017 also saw the final shuttering of historic Chinatown eatery Hop Louie. Though the kitchen and main dining room of the area landmark and onscreen stalwart shut down in August 2016, the lower level bar had remained in operation – and left Angelinos hopeful over the restaurant’s future. That all changed when the locale closed its doors for good last July. What is to become of the legendary site is anyone’s guess. I stalked Hop Louie way back in 2012 after becoming obsessed with it thanks to its appearance in I Love You, Man, but, sadly, never got to actually dine on the premises (more on that in a bit) and somehow failed to dedicate a blog post to the place. Then, last week, while doing some downtown L.A. stalking, the Grim Cheaper and I happened to drive through Chinatown and when my gaze caught sight of Hop Louie’s unique pagoda-shaped exterior, I decided it was high time I rectify that.

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Hop Louie’s eye-catching edifice, which towers over Chinatown, was originally constructed in 1941 to house a Cantonese eatery named Golden Pagoda Restaurant.

How it became Hop Louie is not really well-documented online, but from what I can gather the site was taken over in 1985 by restauranteurs Hop Louie Woo and Bill Ng, who met while working together at Latitude 20 in Torrance. The duo transformed the locale into a Cantonese/Mandarin eatery named after Woo. Though the fare was never especially noteworthy, the place quickly became a neighborhood staple due largely to its kitschy décor, generous servings, and reasonable prices. The cocktail lounge, situated on the lower level and known for serving stiff, inexpensive libations, was also a big part of Hop Louie’s draw.

Very little of the restaurant was changed throughout its thirty-year history, leaving patrons and online commenters to commonly refer to it as being “frozen in time.” The assessment was not at all far off – the place was a relic! A cigarette vending machine could even still be found on the premises as late as 2007.

Sadly, Hop Louie suffered from lingering profits in recent years, leading the owners to shut down the kitchen in August 2016. Though the bar was left open, everyone in the city, it seemed, mourned the restaurant’s demise, with Eater LA, LA Weekly, LAist, NBC Los Angeles, and TimeOut all lamenting the news.

Oddly, when the cocktail lounge shuttered a little less than a year later and the final nail was essentially put in Hop Louie’s coffin, the lights seemed to go out with no fanfare whatsoever. In fact, had it not been for a couple of mentions on Yelp and Instagram, I would not have even realized that the bar had closed and the historic restaurant was no longer.

When the GC and I visited Hop Louie in 2012, our experience left a bit to be desired. Upon entering, we headed upstairs to the dining area and I snapped the photos below along the way.

As we reached the second level and stood waiting to be seated, I took a picture of the dining room which apparently was a huge no-no because a man immediately ran over to us screaming and yelling that photos were not allowed. It was not the best way to be greeted, so, needless to say, we did not stay for a meal and the images above and below are the only ones I got of Hop Louie’s interior. You can check out some great shots of the inside of the place here, though.

You can also catch a glimpse of the restaurant via its myriad onscreen roles. In the 2009 comedy I Love You, Man, Zooey Rice (Rashida Jones) and Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) host their engagement party at Hop Louie.

In an interesting twist, though, one that I did not realize up until writing this post, only the exterior of Hop Louie was utilized in the engagement party scene. Though the eatery is referred to by name in the movie and said to be Peter’s favorite spot to bring dates, it solely appeared in a brief establishing shot. All interior filming took place at the Great Wall Chinese Restaurant located at 18331 Sherman Way in Reseda. You can see some photographs of that site here.

Back in 1978, when the locale still housed the Golden Pagoda, it portrayed the restaurant owned by Miss Choy (France Nuyen) in the Season 7 episode of Columbo titled “Murder Under Glass.”

Once again, only the exterior was utilized in the shoot. Interiors were shot elsewhere.

In 1984, the Golden Pagoda popped up in the Season 2 episode of The A-Team titled “The Maltese Cow.”

As was the case with the previous two productions mentioned, only the exterior of the building appeared onscreen. Interiors were shot, I believe, on a set.

We finally catch a glimpse of Hop Louie’s interior in the 1990 comedy Sibling Rivalry, in the scene in which Marjorie Turner (Kirstie Alley) and her sister Jeanine (Jami Gertz) discuss Jeanine’s new love interest over lunch.

A fight between two rival kick-boxing gangs breaks out near Hop Louie’s entrance in the 1991 action flick Ring of Fire.

Haru (Chris Farley) goes undercover as a teppan chef at Hop Louie in order to spy on Martin Tanley (Nathaniel Parker) in the 1997 comedy Beverly Hills Ninja.

Once again, though, only the exterior of the site was utilized. Interiors were shot on what I believe was a set.

In 1998’s Lethal Weapon 4, Detective Lee Butters (Chris Rock) chases a waiter (Philip Tan) whom he mistakenly thinks is a bad guy through Hop Louie’s dining room.

The waiter winds up jumping out of Hop Louie’s second-story window onto the street below, where he is promptly arrested.

Furious (Ben Stiller) and his team head to Hop Louie to celebrate their first victory in 1999’s Mystery Men. Only the exterior of the site appeared in the movie. (Are you sensing a pattern here?)

Interior filming took place at The Prince, one of my favorite L.A. restaurants.

Hop Louie portrays three different spots in the 2007 comedy Big Stan. The exterior of the restaurant pops up in a couple of scenes as the outside of Master Cho’s Karate studio.

The main dining room is the spot where Big Stan (Rob Schneider) has dinner with The Master (David Carradine) and Lew Popper (M. Emmet Walsh).

And the lower level bar is where Lew meets Madame Foreman (Sally Kirkland).

In the Season 1 episode of Chuck titled “Chuck Versus the Sizzling Shrimp,” which aired in 2007, Hop Louie masks as Bamboo Dragon restaurant where Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi) encounters international spy Mei-Ling Cho (Gwendoline Yeo).

G. Callen (Chris O’Donnell) parks on the side of Hop Louie while chasing a criminal in the Season 1 episode of NCIS: Los Angeles titled “Chinatown,” which aired in 2010.

In the pilot episode of Stitchers titled “A Stitch in Time,” which aired in 2015, Hop Louie masks as the Chinese restaurant that stands as a cover for the secret headquarters of the Stitchers agency.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Hop Louie, from I Love You, Man, is located at 950 Mei Ling Way in downtown L.A.’s Chinatown. The restaurant and bar are both currently closed.

February 14, 2018February 15, 2018

Art’s Delicatessen & Restaurant from “Beverly Hills, 90210: Exposed!”

They say you should always listen to your mother. It’s good advice. Case in point – about a decade ago, while stalking in Studio City, my mom, my dad, the Grim Cheaper and I passed by Art’s Delicatessen & Restaurant on Ventura Boulevard and decided to pop in for a bite. During our meal, my mom encouraged me to take photos of the place as she figured it had likely been utilized for filming at some point or had a celebrity connection. I spent the next couple of minutes bothering the staff with inquiries about shoots on the premises, but no one was aware of any. I snapped a few pictures regardless, but never did further research on the subject. Flash forward to last month. On the advice of my good friend/fellow 90210 aficionado Mike, from MovieShotsLA, I ordered a copy of the book Beverly Hills, 90210: Exposed!, an authorized behind-the-scenes look at the series and its stars written by Bart and Nancy Mills in 1991. When I got to the chapter on Jason Priestley and read the words, “He is all smiles and apologies as he arrives at Art’s Deli half an hour late because work had detained him,” I just about fell over! Oh, how right my mom was! Not only does the restaurant have a celebrity connection, but to my favorite show of all time, no less! I was so thankful I had taken some pics of the place! The only trouble was that when I went to locate the shots, they were nowhere to be found. Fortunately, the GC and I had to head out to Burbank for an IKEA run last week, so we made a pit stop at Art’s while in the area.

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Art’s was established by New York native Art Ginsburg, who moved to Los Angeles as a teen and spent his junior college years learning the ins and outs of sandwich-making while working at a deli owned by his cousin. Armed with $3,000, a collection of family recipes, and the support of his then girlfriend/later wife Sandy, he purchased a small Studio City eatery boasting a scant three and a half booths and twelve counter seats and opened it as Art’s Delicatessen & Restaurant on June 22nd, 1957.

Art’s quickly developed into an area staple, popular with locals, tourists and celebrities alike who flocked to the deli in droves for its authentic Jewish delicacies, homemade soups, and spectacular sandwiches. It is the latter that the site became most famous for. Considering the restaurant boasts the tagline “Where every sandwich is a work of Art,” that is no surprise. Los Angeles Times food critic Jonathan Gold had this to say about the Reuben:, “Sometimes I suspect Ginsburg studies the Reuben the way other great scholars parse the Talmud — adjusting proportions, strength of dressing and sharpness of cheese, crunchiness and ooziness, sweet and tart, until the sandwich speaks simply if profoundly on its own. Art’s is a good deli, but after the Reuben, all else is commentary.” I did not sample that particular offering while there, but instead opted for the Turkey Club (with turkey, bacon, lettuce and tomato on sourdough – along with added cheddar cheese) and it was honestly one of the best sandwiches I have ever had in my life. I can count on one hand the delis I would travel great distances to visit and Art’s is now on that list! (The others are Larchmont Village Wine, Spirits & Cheese in Windsor Square, Sweet Lady Jane in Santa Monica and Sherman’s Deli & Bakery in Palm Springs.)

Thanks to the restaurant’s massive popularity, it was not long before Art’s needed to expand. The site has actually been enlarged four times throughout its sixty-year run, taking over five neighboring storefronts in the process, and its patronage only continues to grow. Today, the deli seats 170 – and is typically packed at most hours.

Art’s has also undergone a complete reconstruction. While it survived the Northridge earthquake of 1994 with only a cracked wall, it succumbed to a massive electrical fire caused by an aftershock early the following morning. There was never any doubt that Ginsburg would rebuild, though. As he told the Los Angeles Times the day after the blaze, “The sign has been up there since 1957; it’s still up there and it’s going to stay up there.” It took nine months to bring the eatery back to life, during which time the surrounding stores felt the brunt of the closure. According to a different Times article, “By some merchants’ estimates, business on the block is down 40% since Art’s 1,000 customers a day stopped walking off their meals by window shopping along Ventura Boulevard.” When the deli’s doors re-opened on October 19th, patrons were lined up outside anxiously awaiting their reunion with the best sandwiches in town. Art’s has been going strong ever since. According to a 1999 LA Weekly article, each week the restaurant goes through 1,000 pounds of corned beef, 4,800 bagels, and 480 pounds of turkey!

Ginsburg himself was just as much a pillar of the community as his restaurant. He not only founded the city’s business improvement district, but also sat on the board of the Los Angeles Valley College Foundation. Even after retiring in 2010 due to health issues, Art would still pop into the restaurant on a daily basis to hold court with his regulars. When he passed away in 2013, the entire neighborhood mourned. Ginsburg’s son, Harold, carries on Art’s vision today, running the eatery with the same aplomb and conviction as his father.

Thanks to Art’s gregariousness and the restaurant’s proximity to a multitude of studios, the place has long been a celebrity haven. Just a few of the luminaries who have been spotted dining on the premises include Delta Burke, Gerald McRaney, Tori Spelling, Leah Remini, Steve Martin, Rob Lowe, John Landis, Lew Wasserman, Ed Asner, Mickey Rooney, Richard Dreyfuss, Jaime Pressly, Ashley Tisdale, Sara Gilbert, Tom Green, Jonah Hill, Zoey Deutch, Lea Thompson, Howard Deutch, Sarah Silverman, and Justin Theroux. Billy Wilder even hung out there in Art’s early days. And in 2011, the deli was the site of an informal reunion for several St. Elsewhere cast members including Ed Begley Jr. and Abby Singer.

One of the most famous movies of the ‘80s was even born over breakfast at the deli. One morning in May 1983, Ivan Reitman, an Art’s regular, met up with Dan Aykroyd at the eatery to discuss a futuristic sci-fi flick the comedian was writing about teams of men who fought ghosts in outer space. As Ivan explained to The Hollywood Reporter of their talk that day, “I said, ‘Look, I love this idea that there are people whose job is to catch ghosts and act like firemen. But it should have a contemporary setting, a big city that we know, like New York. There’s something [better] about seeing apparitions in a context that we understand, like in our living rooms or on our city streets, rather than in a void in outer space in the future sometime. He said, ‘That’s cool.’ And I said, ‘Actually, the story of their formation would be good.’ And I pitched this idea that these guys were paranormal investigators — like, looking at paranormal studies at a university in some kind of postgraduate study program. They get in trouble, they get kicked out, and then they fortuitously set up a business. That was what I pitched at this breakfast and he said, ‘That’s all cool.’” The result of that meeting was, of course, Ghostbusters.

For his Beverly Hills, 90210: Exposed! interview, Jason Priestley chooses to meet with the authors at Art’s, a favorite deli of his that sits in close proximity to the studio where the series was shot. While there, over a meal of matzo ball soup and a bagel with a pickle on the side, he discusses his journey to becoming a household name through his iconic role of Minnesota teen transplant Brandon Walsh. The eatery is referred to by name several times in the book and figures prominently in the chapter on Priestley. One passage reads, “Sitting in Art’s Deli on Ventura Boulevard in Los Angeles, Jason racks his memory to come up with a reason why he chose his life’s work while he still had his baby teeth. To help himself think, he dunks his pickle in his soup.” I find it so incredible – and fabulous – that the restaurant is still in operation thirty years after that interview took place!

As my mom suspected, Art’s is also a filming location!

In the Season 5 episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee titled “Happy Thanksgiving, Miranda,” which aired in 2014, Jerry Seinfeld takes Amanda Sings (Colleen Ballinger) for a Thanksgiving meal at Art’s Deli. The exterior . . .

. . . and interior were utilized in the filming.

Chelsea Handler dined with members of ROMEO (Retired Old Men Eating Out) at Art’s Deli in the Season 1 episode of Chelsea titled “I Was a Ticking Time Bomb,” which aired in 2016. Both the exterior . . .

. . . and interior of the place appeared in the episode.

Sandy Wexler (Adam Sandler) drives past Art’s in a very brief scene near the end of the 2017 Netflix original movie Sandy Wexler.

According to our server, Guy Fieri also recently filmed something at Art’s, but I am unsure of exactly what.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Art’s Delicatessen & Restaurant, where Jason Priestley’s interview for the book Beverly Hills, 90210: Exposed! took place, is located at 12224 Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

January 19, 2018December 11, 2019

The SmokeHouse Restaurant from “Lucifer”

Hollywood loves a redux. So do I, apparently, because here I am yet again with yet another location re-do! (For those who missed it, I penned a second post on the Simpson family home from She’s Out of Control last week.) Today’s blog is actually my third go-around with this particular spot (you can read my first two blurbs on it here and here), but when I saw the legendary SmokeHouse restaurant pop up in a rather lengthy segment of the Season 3 episode of Lucifer titled “The Sinnerman” early last December, I knew I had to revisit the place once again. So here goes.

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Originally established in 1946, the SmokeHouse (which is also referred to as the “Smoke House”) is about as Old Hollywood as it gets!

The eatery, founded by Lockheed engineers Jim Stockton and Jack Monroe, was initially situated at the corner of North Pass Avenue and West Riverside Drive in Burbank. That location, a small 46-seat space, is pictured below via a still from a video made about the restaurant called Tales from the Smoke House.

The site, which became known for serving “fine food at a fair price,” proved so popular right out of the gate that a mere two years later Stockton and Monroe started looking for a larger venue. They found one just a half a mile south in the form of the Red Coach Inn, a 6,000-square-foot Tudor-style eatery that actor Danny Kaye had built in 1947, but never opened. The partners purchased the building in 1948 and it still serves as the home of the Smoke House today.

By 1955, the restaurant once again found itself bursting at the seams, so architect Wayne McAllister (of Bob’s Big Boy and George’s 50’s Diner fame) was hired to create a 12,000-square-foot expansion. Since that time, very little of the place has been altered. Stepping inside is like entering a portal that leads straight back to the heydays of Hollywood.

Inside, dark wood paneling, exposed brickwork, red leather booths, and dimly-lit sconces stretch as far as the eye can see.

As I said earlier, the SmokeHouse couldn’t be more Old Hollywood if it tried.

It is just the sort of spot I imagine Frank Sinatra dropping by for a martini after playing a set at the Hollywood Bowl – which isn’t actually a stretch. Old Blue Eyes was such a fan of the place that the restaurant named a dish after him! (If you would like to partake, Steak Sinatra features tender cuts of filet mignon sautéed with bell peppers, shallots, garlic, mushrooms, tomatoes and red wine, served over linguini.) Frank is hardly the SmokeHouse’s only celebrity patron, though. Thanks to its fabulous food and proximity to several studios, it quickly became a stomping ground for the Tinseltown elite. In Hollywood: The Movie Lover’s Guide, author Richard Alleman dubs the eatery the “unofficial commissary” of Warner Bros., which is situated right across the street. In its early days, luminaries such as Bob Hope, Lana Turner, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Errol Flynn, Milton Berle, Jack Paar, Walt Disney, James Dean, Burt Ives, Robert Redford, and Garry Marshall regularly stopped by.

In more recent years, such celebs as Britney Spears, Kevin Costner, Andy Garcia, Brad Pitt, Madonna, Taylor Swift, and Evan Handler have all been spotted at the SmokeHouse. During the ‘90s, the cast of Friends regularly dined on the premises on taping days. And George Clooney became such a fan of the place while shooting ER at the WB that he named his production company Smoke House Pictures in homage to the restaurant.

It is not just stars who love the place. Thanks to its old school aesthetic and Anywhere, U.S.A-appeal, location managers have flocked to the SmokeHouse over the years.

In the Season 1 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Move On,” which aired in 2005, the SmokeHouse masks as the karaoke restaurant where Julie Mayer’s (Andrew Bowen) birthday party is held.

Gil Grissom (William Peterson) and Jim Brass (Paul Guilfoyle) interrogate Lois O’Neill (Faye Dunaway) at the SmokeHouse in the Season 6 episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation titled “Kiss Kiss, Bye Bye,” which aired in 2006.

In the Season 5, 2008 episode of Entourage titled “Pie,” Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) meets his old friend Andrew Klein (Gary Cole) for lunch at the restaurant.

In one of its most notable roles, the SmokeHouse portrays the Niagara Falls hotel restaurant/bar where the Dunder Mifflin gang hangs out while in town for Jim Halpert (John Krasinksi) and Pam Beesly’s (Jenna Fischer) wedding in the Season 6 episodes of The Office titled “Niagara: Part 1” and “Niagara: Part 2,” which aired in 2009.

In “Niagara: Part 1,” the couple’s rehearsal dinner takes place in the SmokeHouse’s back room.

Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) and John Chambers (John Goodman) discuss making their fake movie over a meal at the SmokeHouse in the 2012 drama Argo.

The SmokeHouse’s interior appears as the inside of Lipton’s, the restaurant where Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) plays the piano at the beginning of 2016’s La La Land. (The exterior of Lipton’s can be found about four miles away in Hollywood – at 1648 Wilcox Avenue, to be exact.)

Chloe Decker (Lauren German) and Marcus Pierce (Tom Welling) finally capture the supposed Sinnerman killer during a sting operation at the SmokeHouse in the Season 3 episode of Lucifer titled “The Sinnerman.” For those who are unfamiliar with the series, I highly recommend a watch. The Grim Cheaper and I got majorly hooked on it from the start. Besides fabulous stories, witty writing and a stand-up cast, the police procedural boasts a highly unique lead character – the devil. Like the actual devil – Lucifer Morningstar (played perfectly by Tom Ellis), who, weary of his long banishment in hell, decides to head to L.A. for a little reprieve. He takes to the City of Angels and all of its hedonistic tendencies quite quickly and it isn’t long before he makes his stay permanent. Through a twist of fate, he begins helping the LAPD solve crimes, eventually taking a day job as a sort of police consultant. It is hilarious, completely irreverent, and hands-down one of the best shows on television right now.

In the most recent episode of All Rise titled “Dripsy,” Mark Callan (Wilson Bethel) witnesses his dad Vic’s (Tony Denison) arrest during what is supposed to be a reconcillation dinner at the SmokeHouse.

Though a few websites claim that the SmokeHouse portrays Joey’s Slammer, the Italian joint belonging to Joseph DiMinna (Michael Ansara), in the Season 2 episode of The Rockford Files titled “Joey Blue Eyes,” that information is incorrect. As a commenter named Brian clarified on the Rockford Files Filming Locations blog, the restaurant scenes were actually shot at Martoni Marquis, formerly located at 8240 Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. You can check out some great photos of the place when it was still in operation here.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The SmokeHouse, from “The Sinnerman” episode of Lucifer, is located at 4420 Lakeside Drive in Burbank. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

January 3, 2018December 27, 2019

Home Restaurant from “Raines”

Every once in a while a show comes along that immediately hooks me. Such was the case with Raines, an extremely short-lived police procedural boasting a scant seven-episode run. I was unaware of the NBC series at the time of its original airing in March 2007. In fact, I only learned of it this past October while doing research for my post on High Tower, the iconic Hollywood Hills campanile from Dead Again that, as I learned via IMDB, also had a prominent role in Raines’ pilot. I was thrilled to discover that the series is available to stream on Amazon and quickly downloaded the inaugural episode. Though I intended to only scan through it to make screen captures for my post, I instantly became intrigued, mainly due to the locations – one of which was an absolutely charming outdoor eatery that I fell in love with upon sight.

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The Raines pilot centers around the murder of beautiful young call girl Sandy Boudreau (Alexa Davalos). The lead cop assigned to solve her killing is Michael Raines (Jeff Goldblum), an eccentric LAPD detective with a unique method of talking to the dead victims he is investigating in order to close cases. (No, he doesn’t actually “see dead people” – the apparitions he encounters are merely figments of his imagination.) In one of the episode’s flashback scenes, Sandy is shown dining at an adorable café where she meets, and winds up dining with, a married man named Harry Tucker (Jeff Perry). One look at the restaurant’s unique signage reading “THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME” and idyllic front patio and I was smitten. I promptly halted my research on High Tower and instead switched my efforts to tracking the eatery down. Thankfully, a quick Google search of the terms “Home,” “restaurant,” and “Los Angeles” led me to the right spot – Home Restaurant at 1760 Hillhurst Avenue in Los Feliz. I ran right out to stalk it shortly thereafter.

Home Restaurant was originally established in 1997 by the husband-and-wife team of Aram and Rose Serobian.

More than twenty years later, the place is still going strong – though eagle-eyed viewers will notice the signage has changed a bit since Raines aired just over a decade ago.

Home has become such a success that the Serobians, who lived above the restaurant on the property’s second floor during its early days, have since opened two sister eateries – a second Home at 2500 Riverside Drive in Silverlake and H Coffee, a café situated next to the original Home at 1750 Hillhurst Avenue. (The couple just recently closed the latter to undergo a renovation and rebranding. It will open in January as Guest House.)

Nestled in amongst a canopy of trees, Home’s setting is absolutely magical.

In a 2016 interview with the Los Angeles Mayor’s Office of Public Engagement, Aram explained that he landed on his eatery’s name because “The word ‘home’ means everything in my culture, and almost everyone holds that idea and concept close to their hearts. So, I put my own heart and soul into this restaurant and see the customers as guests in my own house. It’s about feeling welcome and comfortable, being able to get away from the often-hectic nature of Los Angeles. If everyone can walk in and feel like they’re part of a family, even for just an hour, then I know it has been a success.” Aram can definitely pat himself on the back for a job well done because the restaurant truly does have the feel of a home – albeit the home of someone with impeccable taste in décor.

Situated around a sparkling fountain, with furniture made of reclaimed wood, the patio is especially inviting.

The restaurant also boasts an indoor dining room for those who do not want to eat amongst the elements, but, in my opinion, the patio is where it’s at.

Though neither the Grim Cheaper nor I are big breakfast people, we were both completely enamored with Home’s fare. I opted for the cafe’s California Omelette and it was hands-down one of the best omelets I’ve ever had in my life. The GC selected The All American, with eggs, pancakes, and bacon, and it, too, was fabulous.

Home’s prices are surprisingly reasonable, especially considering the fact that the place is not only a brunch hotspot and hipster haven, but the portion sizes are enormous.

The eatery is also something of a celeb magnet. Mark Ballas, Kristen Stewart, Katherine Heigl, Sophia Bush, Jon Foster, Rachel Bilson, and Audrina Patridge have all been spotted there.

Patridge likes the place so much, she even filmed a scene from her short-lived reality series Audrina there. In Episode 2, she meets with her sister Casey Loza at the restaurant to discuss their parents’ upcoming anniversary party.

Thanks to fellow stalker Ellie I learned that Home was also the spot where Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) met up with Dr. Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) at the end of the Season 1 episode of Grey’s Anatomy titled “No Man’s Land,” which aired in 2005.

And in the Season 2 episode of You titled “Just the Tip,” Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) spies on Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti) and her friends at Home.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Home Restaurant, from the pilot episode of Raines, is located at 1760 Hillhurst Avenue in Los Feliz. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

December 20, 2017May 11, 2020

Cindy’s Restaurant from “Surviving Christmas”

I have made no secret of the fact that I majorly ration Christmas locations from year to year. The sad truth is that few holiday flicks are lensed in the L.A. area (the city’s constant sunshine and lack of snow doesn’t exactly scream “Noel!”), which translates to a very minimal amount of holiday locales. So I tend to dole out my Yuletide-themed blog posts slowly for fear of exhausting the limited supply. Today’s location is a major throwback, though, even for me – one I stalked way back in 2014 with my friends Lavonna, Kim, Melissa and Maria, who were in town visiting from the Midwest. I’m talking about Cindy’s Restaurant, which made an appearance in Surviving Christmas. While I wrote a brief Scene It Before post on the Eagle Rock eatery for Los Angeles magazine later that same year, considering the place is a virtual onscreen juggernaut I figured it was high time I penned a proper write-up on it.

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Though there seem to be some discrepancies regarding the diner’s history floating around online – this Los Angeles Historic Resources Survey contends that the eatery was built as an “L.H. Boody Restaurant” in 1940 and has been in continuous operation as Cindy’s Restaurant since 1963, while the Los Angeles Times asserts that the café first opened its doors in 1948 – I can safely say that the Googie-style property, which is situated on historic Route 66, has been attracting hungry patrons for at least six decades. Sadly, I was unable to dig up anything else about the place’s history – no mention of the site on newspapers.com, no blurbs on the café in my many books about L.A.-area restaurants, not even a reference to the Cindy for whom the eatery was named.

The diner’s recent years were far easier to chronicle. In January 2014, Cindy’s was purchased by Monique King and Paul Rosenbluh, the husband-and-wife-team behind South Pasadena’s popular Firefly Bistro, which sadly shuttered that same December after 12 years in business.

Monique and Paul immediately set about revitalizing the historic site’s interior and exterior, which required shutting the place down for several months. During the renovation, the couple brought new life to the café, which had grown somewhat tired over the years. Thankfully though, the original countertops, booths and wallpaper were left intact, as was the vintage signage, which was refurbished via a Kickstarter campaign. The restaurant re-opened, fresh from its facelift, in April 2014.

Cindy’s menu was given a reboot, as well. Typical diner fare like meat loaf and fried chicken are still offered, but patrons can also nosh on more high-brow items like chicken-fried mushrooms, falafels, and crab hash. While some local denizens were not fans of the changes, most took to the new Cindy’s like moths to a flame. As Paul said to the West Coast Prime Meats website, “There’s a certain amount of people who hate us. We’re not the old Cindy’s. We’re ‘hipsters.’ There are other people who love us for it and tell us, ‘We’ve been coming here for 30 years and this is the first time we’ve had good food.’ You get a little bit of everything.”

In a sad twist, a drunk driver crashed a truck through Cindy’s front windows in June 2016, just two short years after its re-opening, and the restaurant was subsequently shuttered for months while Paul and Monique rebuilt. (Oddly, that was not the first time a car plowed through the eatery – it suffered the same fate in July 2007.) The damage, which you can see photos of here, was extensive, though quite a bit of the décor was able to be salvaged. Cindy’s finally re-opened to much fanfare on December 9th of that same year and has been going strong ever since.

The restaurant boasts an extremely nostalgic palette, one that can be tweaked to represent an Americana diner from pretty much any era, so it is no surprise that studios have flocked to the place to shoot a slew of productions over the years.

Cindy’s portrays the supposed Chicago-area diner where the Valcos – Tom (James Gandolfini), Christine (Catherine O’Hara), Alicia (Christina Applegate), and Brian (Josh Zuckerman) – and Drew Latham (Ben Affleck), the millionaire advertising executive who hired them to pose as his family for the holidays, enjoy Christmas dinner at the end of 2004’s Surviving Christmas.

In the Season 6 episode of Sons of Anarchy titled “Poenitentia,” which aired in 2013, Cindy’s masks as the Reno café where Robert ‘Bobby Elvis’ Munson (Mark Boone Junior) meets up with several Men of Mayhem members.

The restaurant pops up a few times in the 2014 horror flick Ouija as the diner where Isabelle (Bianca Santos) works.

In the Season 5 episode of Parenthood titled “Promises,” which aired in 2015, Zeek Braverman (Craig T. Nelson) takes to eating at Cindy’s while his wife, Camille (Bonnie Bedalia), is out of town and soon befriends a fellow patron named Rocky (Paul Dooley).

Marc Maron, Dave Anthony, and Andy Kindler (all of whom play themselves) grab a couple of meals at Cindy’s in the Season 3 episode of Maron titled “Ex-Pod,” which aired in 2015.

Cindy’s masquerades as a Sunset Strip café named “Gladner’s Coffee Hut” on three episodes of the short-lived television series Aquarius. It first pops up in the 2015 pilot, titled “Everybody’s Been Burned,” in the scene in which undercover detective Brian Shafe (Grey Damon) busts Mike Vickery (Jason Ralph) for drugs and then subsequently gets arrested himself amidst a massive protest.

Shafe returns to Gladner’s Coffee Hut with his partner, Sam Hodiak (David Duchovny), to confront owner Art Gladner (Shaun Duke) in the episode that follows, titled “The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game.”

Art eventually winds up dead in a back area of the restaurant in Aquarius’ third episode, “Never Say Never to Always.”

A subject interview is conducted in one of Cindy’s iconic orange booths in David Farrier’s 2016 documentary Tickled (which looks super interesting).

That same year, Cindy’s popped up in the Season 2 episode of Secrets and Lies titled “The Parent” as the spot where Kate Warner (Jordana Brewster) meets with her son’s adoptive mother, Belinda Peterson (Romy Rosemont).

The diner’s most famous onscreen appearance, though, is in Justin Timberlake’s 2016 “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” music video, which you can watch here.

As was noted on Cindy’s Facebook page shortly after the car crashed into the restaurant that same year, the booth where Justin sat in the video remains unscathed from the accident. Love it!

Most recently, Jen Harding (Christina Applegate) and Judy Hale (Linda Cardellini) popped by Cindy’s Restaurant on their way home from Los Angeles National Forest in the Season 2 episode of Dead to Me titled “Between You and Me,” which just hit Netflix.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Cindy’s Restaurant, from Surviving Christmas, is located at 1500 Colorado Boulevard in Eagle Rock. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.