famous restaurants – Page 7

November 30, 2016November 29, 2016

Martin’s Tavern – Where JFK Proposed to Jackie

I consider myself to be a pretty good stalker, but my good friend Lavonna puts me to shame. Prior to my recent trip to Washington, D.C. with the Grim Cheaper, I painstakingly researched filming locations and area landmarks to check out while we were in town and compiled an extensive list of must-see places. So imagine my surprise when, while strolling around Georgetown, I received a text from Lavonna asking if we were planning to dine at Martin’s Tavern, the spot where, as legend has it, then Senator John F. Kennedy proposed to Jacqueline Bouvier in 1953. Amazingly, I had not come across any information about the historic restaurant during any of my research. So I made an impromptu addition to my D.C. Must-Stalk List and headed right on over to Martin’s to grab lunch.

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Originally established in 1933, Martin’s Tavern is D.C.’s oldest family-owned restaurant. The eatery was founded by William S. Martin, an Irish immigrant who came to American in the late 1890s, and his son William G. Martin, a Georgetown graduate who played professional football, baseball and basketball.

Though the Great Depression was in full swing at the time of Martin’s inception, the tavern managed to succeed.

In 1949, William G.’s son, William A. Martin, a Georgetown University Medical School graduate who was known for being a Golden Gloves boxer and Pro-Am golfer, came onboard. Today, his son, Billy Martin, runs the restaurant. And it is still going strong.

Martin’s Tavern has long been a celebrity and politico hotspot. In fact, aside from Obama, every president from Harry Truman on has dined on the premises.

Martin’s main claim to fame, though, is the JFK/Jackie proposal. As the story goes (and there are some that dispute it), on the evening of June 24th, 1953, while sitting in Booth 3, John F. Kennedy asked for his girlfriend Jackie’s hand in marriage. She said yes, of course, and the rest is very well-publicized history.

Today, there is a plaque displayed on the side of the wooden booth denoting it as the “Proposal Booth.”

Whether the story is true or not (and Martin’s recently found a witness who backs up the claim), what cannot be disputed is the fact that JFK was a frequent patron of the restaurant during his time as a senator, popping in for breakfast every Sunday morning after church.

It is not hard to see why he was such a fan of the place. I fell in love with Martin’s Tavern, and its cozy low-lit, wood-paneled, Tiffany-lamp-strewn interior, pretty much on site.

Though the restaurant’s history alone was enough to have me drooling, the food was pretty incredible, as well. I can honestly say that Martin’s crab cakes (made from a 60-year-old family recipe) were some of the best I’ve ever had in my life. And the staff could not have been more friendly or welcoming. When I expressed an interest in the eatery’s background, our server took me on a little tour of the place and told me all sorts of stories about its vibrant past.

While doing research for this post, I came across several mentions of Martin’s Tavern’s appearance in The Exorcist III. I scanned through the 1990 horror flick, though, and did not see the establishment pop up anywhere. Upon digging further, I stumbled upon the DC Ladies blog, which states that the restaurant was featured in the first twenty minutes of the 1979 original The Exorcist as the spot where Father Merrin (Martin von Sydow) ordered a beer. Well, there is no such scene in the movie, but there is an early segment in which Father Karras (Jason Miller) asks Tom (Thomas Bermingham) for a transfer over a couple of brewskies at a busy bar. Very little of the watering hole can be seen in the scene, though, and while what is shown looks very much like Martin’s, I cannot say with any certainty that filming took place there.

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 this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Martin’s Tavern is located at 1264 Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown. You can visit the eatery’s official website here. JFK is said to have proposed to Jackie in Booth 3.

November 14, 2016November 10, 2016

Connor and Gigi’s Date Restaurant from “He’s Just Not That Into You”

Not every location from He’s Just Not That Into You was a challenge to track down. [As I mentioned yesterday and the day before, both Janine (Jennifer Connelly) and Ben’s (Bradley Cooper) home and Conor’s (Kevin Connolly) row house listing proved to be real thorns in my side.] Case in point, the exterior of the restaurant where Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Conor went on a date in the 2009 flick. That site, which was actually the heavily dressed entrance to two neighboring Mount Vernon eateries named Thairish and The Helmand, was spelled out in a 2007 The Baltimore Sun article that was written while the cast and crew were in town shooting portions of the movie. I came across the piece shortly after I first saw He’s Just Not That Into You and jotted down the addresses in case I ever traveled to Baltimore, an opportunity that finally arose this past September.

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Gigi and Conner’s date restaurant, shown to be named “Red Seven,” only popped up once at the very beginning of He’s Just Not That Into You. As you can see below, due to massive set dressing, the locale looks quite different in person than it did onscreen. For the shoot, the exteriors of Thairish and The Helmand were covered over and made to appear as if they were one large brick and glass-clad space. The Baltimore Sun column states, “While the entrance of Thairish only was covered with cardboard, The Helmand underwent more drastic changes. The Helmand’s manager, Assad Akbari, says contractors with the film changed its sign and swapped out the front door.”

Another Sun article from around that same time went into further detail, stating, “In Mount Vernon, restaurants Thairish and The Helmand were temporarily redecorated Saturday with new lights, a new door and a new name: Red Seven.”

Thairish, a Thai eatery, was shuttered in 2016 and today Khun Nine Thai occupies the space. The Helmand, though, is still going strong. Originally opened in 1989, the Afghan restaurant is something of a Baltimore institution.

Unfortunately, there was a sidewalk fair set up right in front of the two restaurants when we showed up to stalk them, which made getting photographs rather difficult.

The neighborhood where The Helmand and Khun Nine Thai are located is absolutely adorable – and boasts quite a view of the Washington Monument, as you can see below. The Grim Cheaper and I spent quite a bit of time there, exploring the shops and admiring the handsome brick buildings.

Only the exterior of Khun Nine Thai and The Helmand were utilized in He’s Just Not That Into You.

At the time I started researching the movie’s locales, I was unsure where the interior of Conner and Gigi’s date scene was shot. Finding the right spot proved to be a snap, though. One look at photographs of the inside of both The Helmand and Thairish told me that interior footage was lensed elsewhere. My guess was that filming had most likely taken place in Los Angeles, where the majority of the romcom was shot. Red Seven, the name that producers had given to their fictional restaurant, seemed unusual to me. So unusual that I figured it was likely the moniker of a real place – either an actual Baltimore establishment filmmakers wanted to pay homage to or, possibly, the site in L.A. where interiors were filmed. Fingers crossed, I Googled “Red Seven,” “restaurant,” and “Los Angeles” and discovered that there is indeed an eatery by that name in West Hollywood! Images of it matched perfectly to the spot where Gigi and Conor enjoyed a beer and a Ketel-soda. Why the crew went to all of that trouble and did not just use a fake name or no name at all is beyond me, but I’m grateful they did as I might never have found the location otherwise.

As you can see below, filmmakers also went to the trouble of matching the entrance door of their fake restaurant to the actual walls of Red Seven.

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 exterior of Connor and Gigi’s date restaurant from He’s Just Not That Into You was created outside of both Khun Nine Thai and The Helmand, which are located at 804 and 806 North Charles Street in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighborhood, respectively. Interiors were filmed at Red Seven, which is located at 700 North San Vicente Boulevard, in the Pacific Design Center, in West Hollywood. You can visit Khun Nine Thai’s official website here, The Helmand’s here and Red Seven’s here.

November 7, 2016November 5, 2016

Chez Jacques from “Mannequin”

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times – I hate incorrect filming location information! Case in point – while researching Mannequin locales prior to my recent trip to Philadelphia, I came across a mention online that the movie’s restaurant scene was shot at the now defunct Dewey’s Famous on Locust and 15th. A cursory Google search told me a few things – that the eatery closed at some point in the mid-80s, later became a bank and then an outpost of the Cosi chain – and that it was most definitely not the spot featured in Mannequin. The establishment where Jonathan Switcher (Andrew McCarthy) dined with his ex-girlfriend, Roxie (Carole Davis), in the 1987 flick was extremely elegant and fancy, while Dewey’s was a very casual lunch counter. They could not be one and the same. So I set out to find where filming actually had taken place.

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Though the restaurant was referred to as “Chez Jacques” in Mannequin, during a re-watch I spotted neon signage on the eatery’s overhang, as well as a sign posted by the front door, showing a different name. I couldn’t quite make out what the wording said exactly, but I could see that it started with DiL. So I started playing around with different letter combinations in a Google search, also adding “Philadelphia” and “restaurant,” and it was not long before I figured out that the logo displayed on the canopy was that of DiLullo Centro, a since closed upscale Italian spot formerly located at 1407 Locust Street in Philly’s City Center area. Street View showed that the place now housed a Greek eatery named Estia Restaurant, but that the exterior still looked exactly the same as it had in Mannequin. I held out hope that the interior was still recognizable, as well, and the Grim Cheaper and I headed right on over there for lunch our first day in the City of Brotherly Love.

DiLullo Centro was originally founded by Joseph V. DiLullo in 1985. It was the third eatery established by the Philadelphia native, whose foray into the restaurant industry was rather unusual. While working at a barbershop in Fox Chase at 15, Joseph noticed that the pizza parlor across the street had been put up for sale. The price was $5,000, much more than the young man had to his name, but fate interceded. His mother was in a nursing home at the time and during his visits, Joe made friends with an elderly fellow patient. One serendipitous day, Joe talked about the parlor in front of the man, who offered to loan him the money to buy it. Joseph agreed and at the tender age of 16, dropped out of school and became a restaurateur. On the day Joseph’s Pizza opened, the elderly man showed up, along with his chauffeur-driven limo, to offer some words of encouragement. After telling his young squire, “Don’t worry. You’re going to make a lot of money,” he drove off. Though Joe often tried to contact his benefactor, he never heard from him again.

The man’s prophecy came true, though. Joe did make a lot of money. In less than a year, he had turned a large enough profit to purchase a neighboring space, where he moved Joseph’s Pizza. In 1979, he opened the upscale Ristorante DiLullo next door to the pizzeria and six years later, DiLullo Centro in City Center. Sadly, Joe passed away unexpectedly in 1994 at the age of 45, but his widow, Claire, still manages Ristorante DiLullo (now called Moonstruck Restaurant) and Joseph’s Pizza today.

Claire continued to run DiLullo Centro, for a time, as well. Designed by Alesker & Dundon Architects, the opulent 200-seat site featured etched glass partitions, slate flooring, mirrored paneling, and foliage galore. The photographs below, which I got from the Alesker & Dundon website (where more images of the restaurant can be found), show what the space looked like when it first opened.

In 1999, Claire changed the name of the eatery to “Toto,” in honor of her new husband, Toto Schiavone. When Toto closed in 2005, Estia Restaurant opened in its place.

Our meal at Estia was nothing short of fabulous. I ordered the Cheese Saganaki, aka pan-fried kefalograviera cheese with lemon, which is one of my favorite meals. As expected, it was amazing. I mean, how can you go wrong with fried cheese? The restaurant also serves a special type of hummus made without tahini that was out of this world. The GC and I are still trying to figure out how to replicate it.

In Mannequin, Roxie asks Jonathan to meet her at Chez Jacques in the hopes that she can lure him away from his new window dressing job at Prince and Company in order to come to her department store, Illustra. Jonathan does not have a good reputation at Chez Jacques, though. As he explains to Roxie, he formerly worked at the restaurant and once almost burned the place down. (Spoiler alert: Jonathan, or “Ze Flambé Terrorist,” as the maître d’ refers to him, of course, starts another fire dining this visit.)

Though the décor has changed considerably, the restaurant is still very recognizable from its onscreen stint almost thirty years ago. In the screen capture below, you can just make out the elevator behind Jonathan, which I, unfortunately, shot from a different angle. As you can see, though, the rounded walls that flank it, recessed lighting above it, and the positioning of the column in front of it all match what was shown in the movie.

In the scene, Jonathan and Roxie dined in front of the windows in DiLullo Centro’s main dining room, in the section directly next to the mezzanine level.

The stairs leading up to the mezzanine are visible in the scene. Though none of my images show those stairs, you can see the mezzanine itself in my photograph below.

The building that houses Estia also has an interesting history. Designed by Horace Trumbauer in 1922, the 22-story Gothic-style structure was commissioned by Louis Cahan of the Equitable Trust Company of New York and, as such, is known as the Equitable Trust Building. The property’s ground floor was originally the site of a 1,580-seat theatre named the Fox-Locust Theatre, which opened its doors on March 20th, 1927. According to the Cinema Treasures website, such stars as Al Pacino, James Earl Jones, Ethel Barrymore, Paul Newman, Richard Dreyfuss, Milton Berle, Carol Channing, Henry Fonda, and Anne Bancroft all graced its stage at one time or another. When the theatre closed in 1980, portions of the auditorium were razed in order to make room for a parking lot. The interior that remained intact was remodeled and became DiLullo Centro. You can see some photos of what the theatre looked like when it was still in operation here.

On a side note – I would like to wish my mom a very happy birthday today. I am so thankful I get to call you my mama! Not only do we a share a love of Pretty Little Liars (as evidenced below) she is the one who originally got me hooked on filming locations, for which I will be forever grateful. Love you!

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: Estia Restaurant, aka the former DiLullo Centro, aka Chez Jacques from Mannequin, is located at 1405-1407 Locust Street in Philadelphia’s City Center. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

July 13, 2016July 12, 2016

The “Sex and the City” McDonalds

Today’s location is a bit of a fail and a lucky twist all in one. My mom always says to trust in the universe – and she’s right. Things happen for a reason. This locale – easily one of my most-wanted ever – is proof of that. I am a pretty simple girl when it comes to most things, especially food. I’ll take McDonald’s over a fancy restaurant any day. So when Aleksandr Petrovsky (Mikhail Baryshnikov) and Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) dined at an NYC Golden Arches outpost in the Season 6 episode of Sex and the City titled “The Ick Factor,” I practically swooned – and vowed to stalk the place someday. The road to tracking it down was fraught with quite a few twists and turns, though, and even involved stalking an incorrect location (pictured above).

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In “The Ick Factor,” Carrie becomes overwhelmed by Petrovsky’s many extravagant romantic gestures. One night, after he recites a Joseph Brodsky poem to her, she asks if she can read him her kind of poetry and then shares a passage from Vogue about a sleeveless hot pink Oscar de la Renta dress.

The next time the two see each other, Alek has a surprise for Carrie – tickets to a Metropolitan Opera opening . . . and the sleeveless hot pink Oscar de la Renta dress. Now, while Met tickets would leave me fairly cold, any guy who bought me a designer dress for no reason at all would be A-OK in my book.

All does not go as planned for the couple, though, as a funny thing happens on the way to the opera. While walking through the courtyard of Lincoln Center, Alek asks Carrie to dance . . .

. . . and she proceeds to faint. When she comes to, she tells him, “It’s too much. I’m an American. Ya gotta take it down a notch.”

So the two forgo the opera and instead head to McDonald’s for a meal of Chicken McNuggets, a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, and Supersize fries. Mickey D’s in a designer dress? Now that’s my kind of date!

While standing at the counter awaiting their order, Carrie gets swept up in the romance of it all and tells Petrovsky that she is finally ready for that dance. As I said, swoon! The moment was, hands down, one of my favorite scenes of the series and I wanted nothing more than to dance in the same spot Carrie did – while wearing a designer dress, of course.

Try as I might, though, I just could never seem to find that McDonald’s. Enter my friend Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, who I mentioned my query to in 2010. Per usual, he went above and beyond to help me, even going so far as to contact the NYC Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre, and Broadcasting. A very kind woman there told Owen that while she was unsure of which McDonald’s was used in the production, he was welcome to come in and go through the permits. Owen made an appointment to do so, but a few days later he heard from the woman once again. As fate would have it, she had found the information we were seeking on, of all places, HBO’s official Sex and the City website! Now I had visited that website many times, especially its filming locations section, but had stopped doing so once I purchased Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell in 2004, as the book has all of the same location information chronicled. What I didn’t realize what that the HBO website updated its locations page at some point, adding “The Ick Factor” McDonald’s. D’oh! As you can see below, according to HBO, the Sex and the City Mickey D’s (Location #14) is said to be at 57th and 6th. (The actual address, which Owen later dug up, is 45 West 57th Street in Midtown West.)

Upon relaying the information, Owen also notified me of the bad news that the eatery had been shuttered in 2007, which meant no dancing on the premises in a designer dress for me! During its tenure at 45 West 57th, McDonald’s leased all three floors of the 8,500-square-foot spot (paying a whopping $800,000 a year to do so!). When the burger chain vacated the site, it was gutted and divided into three different units. The bottom floor was taken over by an organic café named Danku. Prior to opening, the space underwent an extensive $1-million renovation. Danku did not last long, though. By January 2010, it, too, had closed its doors and a fresh&co outpost eventually moved in. Despite the heavy alterations and numerous changes in tenancy, because it was a location that meant so much to me, I added the address to my NYC To-Stalk List and was beyond excited to finally see it in person this past April.

At the time that Owen notified me of his find, I had no imminent plans to head to New York and was also knee-deep in the middle of wedding planning, so I took HBO at its word and did no further investigating. It was not until I sat down to write this post early last week that things started to go awry. While doing research on the 57th Street McDonald’s, I came across some images of what the interior and exterior looked like shortly after Mickey D’s moved out and very quickly realized it was not the right spot. The most glaring tell was the fact that the 57th Street space featured a large floor-to-ceiling window on its western side (as you can see here). That window is still intact and is pictured in my photograph below. Such a window would have been visible behind Carrie in “The Ick Factor” (in the area noted with a pink rectangle), but, as you can see, that is not the case.

The flooring and tile work behind the counter (both of which you can see in this image), doors (which you can see here) and window casings (which you can see here) at the 57th Street McDonald’s were also vastly different from what appeared on Sex and the City. Not to mention, the 57th Street site boasted a large stairwell near its entrance (you can see it here and here). Those stairs should have been visible on SATC in the area denoted with a pink rectangle below, but were not. No doubt about it, HBO listed the wrong location on its site.

Feeling elated over the fact that the right McDonald’s might still possibly be in operation, I immediately headed on over to Google and pulled up a listing for every single outpost located on the island of Manhattan. I spent countless hours on Street View looking for one with front doors and window casings that matched what appeared in “The Ick Factor,” but came up empty-handed. Then the following day, in a very fortuitous turn, I decided to write about Terry’s (Whoopi Goldberg) apartment from Jumpin’ Jack Flash. In the post, I mentioned an old NYC eatery named La Tablita. While researching that restaurant, I came across this West Side Rag article and immediately froze when I saw the top image. It was of a recently-shuttered McDonald’s, said to be at 81st and Broadway, that had the exact doors and windows I had been looking for.

I quickly ascertained that the address of the McDonald’s was 2271 Broadway and started searching for interior photos of it. I found several on Foursquare and what they showed matched the SATC McDonald’s perfectly! As you can see below, the tiling of the front of the counter (pink arrows), the tiling of the wall behind it (turquoise arrows), and the flooring (blue arrows) all correlate to what appeared in “The Ick Factor.”

The doors (turquoise arrows) and window (green arrows) were also a perfect match, as was the triangular mirrored panel (pink arrows) visible behind Carrie in the scene.

I was most excited to see that the half wall located next to the front counter was the spitting image of the one from “The Ick Factor.”

So there you have it, the long complicated story of the Sex and the City McDonald’s. Though I am saddened that the restaurant is closed, I am thrilled that it has now at least been found – and in such a fortuitous way. Had I not attempted to write about the 57th Street outpost the day before blogging about the Jumpin’ Jack Flash apartment, I would have come across that West Side Rag image and thought nothing of it – and the correct McDonald’s might never have been located! As my mom always says, things happen for a reason. Though Owen does believe that HBO owes me an apology and I tend to agree. So HBO? I’m waiting.

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 McDonald’s featured in “The Ick Factor” episode of Sex and the City was formerly located at 2271 Broadway on New York’s Upper West Side.

May 27, 2016May 29, 2018

NoMo Kitchen from “The Other Woman”

My favorite movie of 2014 was The Other Woman. The romcom may have been heavily panned by critics, but I loved everything about it. The Grim Cheaper and I saw it in theatres shortly after it premiered and then I purchased a copy as soon as it came out on DVD and have proceeded to watch it copious times since. I’m addicted! The flick was lensed primarily in New York and its environs and I, of course, tracked down the vast majority of its locales immediately upon buying the DVD. (I chronicled a few of them in an August 2014 Los Angeles magazine post which you can read here.) The spot I was most anxious to stalk was the restaurant featured at the end of the movie. I finally got my chance while in NYC last month.

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At the end of The Other Woman (spoiler alert!), after exacting revenge upon their cheating husband/boyfriend Mark King (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), Carly Whitten (Cameron Diaz), Kate King (Leslie Man), and Amber (Kate Upton) headed to an absolutely gorgeous restaurant to celebrate.

The eatery’s setting was nothing short of magical and, even though it was only featured briefly in the movie, I became captivated by it while watching. Thanks to the On the Set of New York site, I learned that filming of the restaurant scene had taken place at Isola Trattoria & Crudo Bar located at 9 Crosby Street in SoHo. I added the information to my vast file of New York filming locations and did not do any further thinking on it until I started planning out itineraries for our April trip. Isola Trattoria was one of my must-see/must-eat-at locales and, upon Googling the restaurant’s name to see if reservations were suggested, I was heartbroken to learn that it had closed. I added it to my To-Stalk List regardless with the hope that I might be able to peek through a window and catch a glimpse of the place’s stunning interior.

Imagine my surprise – and elation! – when I arrived on the scene and discovered that the restaurant was not only still open, but that it looked exactly the same as it did onscreen! Thanks to the super friendly staff, I learned that the eatery had never actually closed, but had only undergone a name change, from Isola Trattoria & Crudo Bar to NoMo Kitchen.

NoMo Kitchen is located on the ground floor of the hip and elegant NoMo SoHo hotel, which was originally constructed as the Mondrian SoHo in 2011. The unique, dream-like schematic of both the hotel and restaurant was conceived by interior designer Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz, who drew inspiration from the 1946 film La Belle et la Bete (a French adaptation of the Beauty and the Beast fairytale).

When the Mondrian first opened, the restaurant was a “sustainable seafood spot” known as Imperial No. 9. Helmed by former Top Chef contestant Sam Talbot, the 180-seat, 5,000-square-foot venue consisted of two sections – an interior dining room and a greenhouse-like space enclosed by a glass atrium. The stunning greenhouse is the area that appeared in The Other Woman.

By August 2012, the eatery had become Isola Trattoria. While the menu received an overhaul at that time, the striking dining area thankfully did not. Aside from swapping out Imperial’s odd patio-furniture-like tables and chairs for more sleek leather and wood combinations, the space was left untouched. It was also left unaltered during the transition from Isola to NoMo Kitchen (the name is a combination of the words “nostalgic” and “modern”) in 2015.

NoMo Kitchen still retains its breathtaking garden-like setting, with towering crystal chandeliers hanging from the peaked glass roof, a sprawling cream stone bar backed by handsome oak shelving, and massive amounts of foliage adorned with twinkle lights.

The site also boasts an adorable outdoor patio.

I half expected fairies to start flying around while we were exploring the place. It’s truly that magical!

NoMo Kitchen is easily one of New York’s most beautiful spaces.

So it is no surprise that it also popped up in an episode of The Real Housewives of New York City. In Season 8’s “Airing Your Dirty Laundry,” Bethenny Frankel, Carole Radziwill and Ramona Singer met up there and discussed Sonja Morgan’s “cheater brand,” Tipsy Girl.

Besides functioning as a working restaurant and filming location, NoMo Kitchen is also available as a special events venue. I can’t even image how gorgeous a wedding there would be!

On a side-note – and speaking of special events – while in New York, the GC, my friend Owen (from the When Write Is Wrong blog), and I happened to meet a woman named Man-Lai Liang who did us an enormous favor. I won’t get into specifics, but to say she hooked us up would be a vast understatement. I wanted to say a huge thank you to her for her incredible kindness and also give her a shout-out. Man-Lai is a New York-based special events coordinator, so if you are looking for help in planning your next Big Apple party, I urge you to contact her. You can visit her website here.

Big THANK YOU to the On the Set of New York website for finding this location!

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: NoMo Kitchen, from The Other Woman, is located at 9 Crosby Street, inside of the NoMo SoHo hotel, in New York’s SoHo district. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

May 18, 2016January 29, 2017

Famous Original Ray’s Pizza from “Sex and the City”

The Grim Cheaper and I used to visit New York at least once a year. Prior to this recent trip, though, we had not been to Manhattan since October 2009! Being separated from my favorite city for almost seven years was quite a hard pill to swallow. During that time, I accumulated a ridiculously large list of must-see Manhattan filming locations that were chronicled in various files in my office and on my computer. Because our recent trip was booked very last minute, I did not have much time to plan my itinerary, which was especially frustrating to someone as hyper-organized as I tend to be. Adding to the haphazardness of my planning was the fact that some of my files seemed to be missing. One locale that I vividly remembered tracking down was a pizza parlor that appeared on Sex and the City. I couldn’t find a mention of it anywhere in my notes, though, nor could I for the life of me remember the name of the place, what episode it had appeared in, or even what the scene involving it entailed. So I went back to the drawing board and began the hunt for it all over again.

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I cannot tell you how many Google searches I did using the terms “Sex and the City,” “episode” and “pizza” to try to stir my memory. After what seemed like days of scouring the internet, I finally came across a mention of a scene in Season 2’s “The Caste System” in which Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) grabbed a slice of pizza with then boyfriend Steve Brady (David Eigenberg). So I popped in my SATC Season 2 DVD and, sure enough, it was the right episode! I was even further floored to discover that a logo reading “Famous Original Ray’s Pizza” was visible on a cup in the scene. From there, despite the fact that there are several “Famous Original Ray’s Pizza” locations dotted throughout the city, finding the right one was a snap.

In “The Caste System,” Steve treats Miranda to two large slices of pie at Ray’s, which they then eat while sitting on a bench outside. I had been mesmerized by the size of the pizzas upon originally watching the episode way back when, which is why I had wanted to track down the restaurant so badly the first time around. Walk-up pizzerias aren’t commonplace in California, nor are humongous slices that require two hands to eat, so I was dying to not only stalk the place, but to sample a slice of my own.

I mean, look at the size of those slices!

My wish finally came true during our third day in the city while hanging out with my friend/fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog. And the experience was everything I’d hoped it would be. Ray’s serves up some fabulous two-hands-required slices of pizza!

I was most thrilled, though, to see that despite the passage of 17 years (Seriously, 17 years! How is that possible?), the restaurant still looks very much the same today as it did when “The Caste System” was filmed in 1999.

Both the interior . . .

. . . and the exterior were featured in the episode.

Ray’s has quite the interesting – and confusing – history. At one point in time, there were countless iterations of Ray’s Pizzas dotted throughout the city. So many, in fact, that their presence was a running joke among Manhattanites – and even figured into a Seinfeld storyline. In Season 9’s “The Maid,” Kramer (Michael Richards) gets lost in downtown New York and calls Jerry (who played himself) for help. Kramer tells Jerry that he is standing in front of a Ray’s Pizza. The rest of the conversation goes like this – Jerry: “Is it Famous Ray’s?” Kramer: “No, it’s Original Ray’s.” Jerry: “Famous Original Ray’s?” Kramer (on the verge of hysteria) : “It’s just Original, Jerry!” You can watch the segment by clicking below.

The very first Ray’s – or should I say “original”? – which was dubbed “Ray’s Pizza,” was opened in 1959 by a Sicilian named Ralph Cuomo at 27 Prince Street in Little Italy. When asked why he didn’t name his restaurant “Ralph’s Pizzeria” while being interviewed for a 1991 The New York Times article, he told reporter John Tierney, “Ralph’s might have sounded, I don’t know, maybe too feminine. Besides, nobody ever called me Ralph. My family took the Italian word for Ralph — Raffaele — and shortened it to Rayfie or just Ray. All my life I was addressed that way.” A few years later, Cuomo opened a second Ray’s Pizza at 1073 First Avenue, which he subsequently sold in 1964 to another Sicilian named Rosolino Mangano. Rosolino quickly turned that single pizzeria into a virtual industry, establishing several additional eateries under the name “Famous Original Ray’s Pizza” in a short period of time.

The story doesn’t end there, though. In 1981, Mangano sold one of his outposts to New York native Gary Esposito. Gary went on to open five additional pizzerias under the name “Original Ray’s.” It was around that time period that copycat parlors, all using some variation of the “Famous Original Ray’s” name, began popping up across New York like a virus. To stop the insanity and to keep the integrity of his own chain intact, Gary tracked down the true original Ray (or should I say Ralph?), Cuomo, who sold him the rights to the Ray’s name. Esposito and Cuomo wound up joining forces by establishing a new company together in order to franchise additional Ray’s outposts. After some legal hassling, Mangano also joined the team and became vigilant about shutting down all non-licensed Ray’s sites. His efforts were largely successful and today there are eight licensed Famous Original Ray’s Pizza branches dotted across New York.

The Ray’s Pizza epidemic was also mentioned in the 2003 comedy Elf. Upon learning that Buddy (Will Ferrell) is to heading to New York City to find his father, Santa (Edward Asner) advises him on all things Big Apple. One of his tips is, “There are, like, thirty Ray’s Pizzas. They all claim to be the original, but the real one’s on 11th.” That’s actually incorrect, though. The 11th Avenue spot, formerly known as “Original Ray’s,” was an unaffiliated parlor opened by brothers Mario and Lamberto DiRienzo in 1973. That site was shuttered in 2011, thanks in large part to lawsuits filed by Mangano. Though it later re-opened under the name Famous Roio’s, the eatery closed its doors for good in 2013. The space that formerly housed it is now the site of a Chinese food restaurant. You can read a more in-depth history of the Ray’s Pizza battles here.

Famous Original Ray’s Pizza was also featured in the Season 6 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit titled “Identity” as the spot where Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) interrogated two teens about the death of one of their fellow gang members.

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: Famous Original Ray’s Pizza, from “The Caste System” episode of Sex and the City, is located at 204 West 9th Avenue in Chelsea. You can visit the pizzeria’s official website here.

May 13, 2016May 12, 2016

Two Boots To Go West Pizza from “Sex and the City”

There’s nothing quite like a slice of New York pizza! Just watching characters eat a piece on TV or in a movie is enough to make me drool. So I, of course, had long been dying to stalk the Big Apple pizzeria that appeared in the Season 6 episode of Sex and the City titled “Great Sexpectations.”

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In the episode, Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) head to a pizza place for a second dinner after not being fulfilled by their meal at Raw, the hip new “vegan non-dairy” restaurant where “nothing is cooked over 118 degrees.” It is there that Miranda tells Carrie about her love for her new “boyfriend,” TiVo. As she explains, “While I’m eating this slice of pizza, my boyfriend is home taping my favorite TV show. With TiVo, when there’s something I don’t enjoy, I just speed right through it. And he surprises me with things that he thinks I might like, which is how I got hooked on Jules and Mimi.”

I loved absolutely every aspect of the scene – from the opening close-up of the girls’ fabulous shoes to the way the camera panned upwards to their faces to the fact that they were standing at a tall table eating their slices, instead of sitting down. The whole thing just looked so appealing and screamed “New York” to me and every time I watched it, I thought, “Yes, I want to do that!”

Unfortunately, there was not a whole lot for me to go on in tracking this location down. Though some signage was visible in the background of the scene, it was not clear enough for me to make out any words or names. Then, a couple of years ago, I came across a mention of On Location Tours’ Sex and the City Hotspots Tour which stated that Two Boots To Go West Pizza in Greenwich Village was the spot where Carrie and Miranda enjoyed their non-raw meal. So I immediately added the site to my New York Must-Stalk List and, as fate would have it, happened to randomly walk right by it on my way to another must-see locale while I was in NYC last month.

The first Two Boots eatery was originally established by Doris Kornish, Phil Hartman (not that Phil Hartman), and John Touhey at 37 Avenue A in the East Village in 1987. The restaurant, named for the shoe-like shapes of both Italy and Louisiana, served Cajun/Italian fare, including a popular cornmeal crust pizza. Demand for the unique slices was so great that a second takeout location named Two Boots To Go was opened nearby in 1989. Additional branches continued to follow, including Two Boots To Go West at 201 West 11th Street in the West Village in 1995. There are now 15 Two Boots outposts dotted throughout Manhattan, as well as in Brooklyn, Connecticut, Baltimore, New Jersey, Nashville, and Los Angeles.

Sadly, we had just eaten lunch a few minutes prior to happening upon Two Boots To Go West (at a different SATC pizza place, which I will be blogging about soon), so we were not able to sample the slices, which is a shame because the pizza looked – and smelled – uh-ma-zing! I am so heading right on over to one of Two Boots’ L.A. branches the next time I am in town.

I did manage to pop in and snap a few quick pics while I was there, though.

Seeing the restaurant in person threw me a bit as it did not look as I had imagined it to. On Sex and the City, only one side of the eatery was shown and the shots were all fairly tight, so I envisioned it to be tiny. In real life, Two Boots To Go West is actually quite large.

I was so thrown by the layout, in fact, that not only did I think for a time that I might be at the wrong Two Boots outpost, but I also failed to to snap photos of the exact spot where Carrie and Miranda dined.

For “Great Sexpectations,” one of the eatery’s tall tables was brought to the center of the restaurant, directly in front of the pizza counter, and that is where Miranda and Carrie stood. In actuality, there are no tables in that spot, as that is where the line is typically situated. You can check out an image taken from the same angle that was shown on Sex and the City 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: Two Boots To Go West Pizza, from the “Great Sexpectations” episode of Sex and the City, is located at 201 West 11th Street in New York’s West Village. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

April 1, 2016March 31, 2016

My Latest Mike the Fanboy Article – About Sur Restaurant

Be sure to check out my latest article for Mike the Fanboy, about my best advice for having a Vanderpump Rules experience. You can read it here.

March 30, 2016March 29, 2016

Vivian’s Millennium Café

I have to say that while I have always been a pretty big fan of Leah Remini (hello, Saved by the Bell! Who’s the Boss?! Living Dolls!), I don’t particularly love her reality show, Leah Remini: It’s All Relative. I was fascinated to learn through watching it, though, that Leah’s husband, mother, and stepfather run an eatery in Studio City named Vivian’s Millennium Café. This stalker loves herself some filming locations of the restaurant variety, especially ones that have a celebrity tie-in! But, while I immediately added the place to my To-Stalk List upon first seeing it on It’s All Relative way back in 2014, for whatever reason I never made it over there. Then, when I spotted it pop up in an episode of fave show Battle Creek (which was maddeningly cancelled after just one season!), Vivian’s moved to the top of the list and I finally managed to stalk it late last year.

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Sadly, Vivian’s was jam-packed when we arrived (from what I’ve since read on Yelp, it always is), so we were not able to eat there.

I was shocked to discover upon entering how small the eatery is in real life. The interior reminded me a lot of Café Lalo in New York, at least size-wise. It was too small (and far too crowded) to snap any interior photographs, unfortunately, but you can see what the inside of the place looks like here. Considering its scant size, it is pretty surprising to me that they were able to fit cameras inside to film.

The eatery, which is situated inside of a former house, was originally established by a couple named Vivian and Walter in 1963. The site changed hands several times over the years before being purchased by Leah’s stepfather, George Marshall, mother, Vicki Marshall, and husband, Angelo Pagan, in November 1999. They renamed the site Vivian’s Millennium Café in honor of that date.

The restaurant has proved popular over the years and on the weekends wait times for a table are often upwards of two hours! So if you plan on dining there, be sure to carve out an appropriate chunk of time.

Vivian’s also boasts a tree-lined back patio that is absolutely adorable, but was, sadly, standing-room only when we were there.

The café shows up regularly on It’s All Relative and has been the subject of several storylines.

In the Season 1 episode titled “What’s the Point, Mom?”, Leah attempts to redecorate the place, but her stepfather wants no part of it.

And in “Lady Is a Tramp Stamp,” also from Season 1, Leah’s sister, Shannon Farrara, starts working at Vivian’s.

And now we’ve come to the weird part of this particular post. I vividly remember Vivian’s popping up in an episode of Battle Creek and even have a notation about it in my stalking notebook. But I scanned through each episode twice (thank you, Netflix!) prior to writing this column and did not see it anywhere. So I’m either officially going crazy, remembering the wrong TV show, or just continually missing the place while scanning through Battle Creek. If any of my fellow stalkers happen to know which episode was lensed at the restaurant (if one actually was), please let me know as it is driving me nuts!

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: Vivian’s Millennium Café, from Leah Remini: It’s All Relative, is located at 10968 Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

March 28, 2016March 25, 2016

Shakers Family Restaurant from “Old School”

Today’s locale is another one of those facepalm spots. For ages, I had been trying to track down the interior of the diner where Mitch (Owen Wilson) and the boys discussed saving their fraternity in the 2003 comedy Old School. While I had long known that Montrose Bakery & Café (which, sadly, Yelp is reporting has closed) was used as the exterior of the restaurant, the café that portrayed the interior remained a mystery. Then while watching the flick recently, I spotted something that I thought I recognized.

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Visible outside of the window behind Mitch in the restaurant scene was a red brick building that looked extremely familiar to me.

Upon scrutinizing the scene further, I spotted a Kentucky Fried Chicken outpost located across the street from the restaurant and it was then that everything clicked into place. I knew immediately that filming had occurred at Shakers Family Restaurant in South Pasadena. I used to get my nails done at a salon just south of Shakers and, though I had never eaten there, I passed by it, as well as the red brick building and the KFC (which is now Mamma’s Brick Oven Pizza and Pasta), on a regular basis, which is why they looked so familiar to me.

As soon as I figured out that filming had taken place at Shakers, I started doing some research on the eatery and its filming history and came across this mention of Old School being shot on the premises on the Scott’s L.A. Audio Tours website. Now, not only have I been to that website several times over the years, but I own and have listened to (several times, I might add!) the Scott’s L.A. Pasadena Audio Tour CD! D’oh! Feeling a bit sheepish, I immediately added the diner to my To-Stalk List and ran right on over there a couple of weeks later.

The Googie-style building that houses Shakers was originally built in 1965 for the Preble’s Restaurant and Coffee Shop chain. It was designed by the famed Armet & Davis architecture firm, who also gave us Norm’s La Cienega. You can see an advertisement for Preble’s here and you can check out what a few other restaurants built for the chain look like today here.

In 1971, the South Pasadena Preble’s changed hands and was turned into the Salt Shaker. Just a few years later, in 1975, the owners dropped “salt” from the name (according to Wikia, the change was made due to the many studies being released at the time that showed salt was unhealthy) and the eatery became known simply as “Shakers” or “Shakers Family Restaurant.” Though the interior has been remodeled slightly in recent years, it still boasts much of the same décor that it did when the Salt Shaker was originally established 45 years ago.

I cannot believe that in all the years I lived in Pasadena, I never dined at Shakers! The Grim Cheaper and I thoroughly enjoyed our lunch there, though I am really regretting not opting to order the chicken strips, which countless Yelp reviewers have touted as being the best they’ve ever had. That’s what I get for trying to be healthy! I cannot say enough good things about the Classical Cobb Salad that I did order, though. It was fabulous!

Thanks to the place’s fabulously retro aesthetic, it has long been a favorite of location managers.

In Old School, Mitch and his Alpha Epsilon Omega brothers discussed the Charter Certification Review of their fraternity while sitting in Shakers’ southern dining room.

As I mentioned earlier, only the interior of Shakers was featured in Old School. The exterior shown in the movie can be found at 2325 Honolulu Avenue in Montrose.

I was floored to learn via various websites and Yelp reviews that an episode of The X-Files had been lensed at Shakers. I was unsure of which episode, though, and while it took quite a bit of time, I finally managed to figure it out! Shakers was the spot where Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) told Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) the legend of the Lazarus Bowl in Season 7’s “Hollywood A.D.,” which aired in 2000 and was written and directed by Duchovny.

As I mentioned in my recent post about Beeman Park from Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Shakers masked as The Burger Hole in the 2008 comedy Role Models. The eatery popped up twice in the film and both the exterior . . .

. . . and interior were utilized.

In the Season 2 episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. titled “One of Us,” which aired in 2015, Calvin Zabo (Kyle MacLachlan) and the rest of the “Masters of Evil” dine at Shakers and discuss how to take down the Agents.

I immediately recognized the diner when it popped up in the recently-aired episode of Scandal titled “Wild Card” as the spot where Tom Larsen (Brian Letscher) convinced Wayne Turner (Braden Lynch) to hold up the Pennsylvania State Capital.