Gone in 60 Seconds – IAMNOTASTALKER

January 28, 2015August 1, 2018

St. Vincent Court from “The Mentalist”

I cannot wait for the Secret L.A.-themed February issue of Los Angeles magazine to hit newsstands! The City of Angels is chock full of tucked-away gems and I absolutely love discovering them. The Grim Cheaper and I just stalked one, in fact, that is also a filming location – St. Vincent Court, which appeared in a recent episode of The Mentalist. I first discovered the tiny and incredibly unique alleyway while on a Watson Adventures’ Downtown L.A. Movie Locations Scavenger Hunt with Mike, from MovieShotsLA, back in November 2010. So I recognized it immediately when it popped up on The Mentalist and ran right out to re-stalk it while in L.A. last week.

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St. Vincent Court is so named because it stands on the site of what was Los Angeles’ first college, Saint Vincent’s College. The school was originally founded in 1865 at the Lugo Adobe House. Two years later, it moved to a two-story building on 6th Street, between Hill and Broadway, in downtown L.A. St. Vincent Court, which is actually a small alleyway, was known as St. Vincent Place at the time and served as the main pathway onto the campus. In 1887, the school relocated to a new venue and the property subsequently served as a military compound. Then, in 1906, it was chosen to be the location of the very first Bullocks department store. The new store was constructed on the corner of 7th and Broadway, adjacent to St. Vincent Place, which was used as a pass through and for deliveries. Bullocks soon purchased the building located across the alley and built an air bridge to connect the two structures. The alley became dirty and dingy, as alleys tend to do, though, and in 1956 Bullocks and the City of L.A. teamed up to give the small space a facelift. Façades and false fronts were built, awnings installed, a café and flower shop added, and the alley’s name changed to St. Vincent Court. The site was dedicated in 1957 and became a California Registered Historical Landmark that same year.

St. Vincent Court is situated behind a rather unremarkable breezeway and is virtually hidden from view. Despite the signage out front announcing its existence, one could easily walk by without even realizing it is there.

From the outside, it looks like any other of the city’s non-descript alleys. Step inside, though, and you’ll find that it is anything but.

Inside, the place looks like Disneyland.

The fake balconies;

ornate overhangs;

whimsical signage;

elaborate doorways and windows;

and sidewalk seating . . .

. . . . all add up to give the alley an amusement park/movie set/fake European/old world-feel. To say that St. Vincent Court is unique is a vast understatement. The place is like a Hollywood backlot that has been randomly plopped into the middle of downtown.

Despite some recent opposition to outdoor seating in the alley, mid-week St. Vincent Court is typically bustling with hungry downtowners seeking authentic European and Mediterranean-style meals at lunchtime.

In the Season 7 episode of The Mentalist titled “Orange Blossom Ice Cream,” Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) and Teresa Lisbon (Robin Tunney) went undercover in Beirut in order to capture a terrorist. No filming actually took place in the Middle East, though. Instead production simply headed to . . . downtown Los Angeles. The hotel where Patrick and Teresa stayed in the episode was none other than the Millennium Biltmore.

Two of the Biltmore’s hallways were used in the episode . . .

. . . but I am fairly certain that Jane and Lisbon’s suite was just a set built on a soundstage at Warner Bros. Studios where The Mentalist is lensed.

For outdoor filming, production head to St. Vincent Court. The alley was first shown in the scene in which Patrick was taken to meet with terrorist Jan Nemic (Mark Ivanir).

Nemic’s lair was actually the back side of the Los Angeles Theatre.

Later in the episode, Lisbon and Jane dined on some manakish at a local Beirut eatery.

The restaurant scene was filmed at the Sevan Garden Kebab House, which is located at the northeastern end of St. Vincent Court. Unfortunately, I did not get any photos of the place’s interior. You can check some out here, though.

After dinner, Jane and Lisbon head out to St. Vincent Court and hail a cab.

At the end of the episode, Lisbon and Jane are shown walking up the Biltmore’s stairs . . .

. . . and onto the hotel’s rooftop to share some orange blossom ice cream.

St. Vincent Court also appeared in the Season 1 episode of Moonlight titled “Out of the Past.”

Memphis Raines (Nicolas Cage) sped through the alley while being chased by cops in Gone in 60 Seconds

And Taylor Swift danced there in her “Delicate” music video.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: St. Vincent Court, from the “Orange Blossom Ice Cream” episode of The Mentalist, is located on 7th Street, in between South Hill Street and Broadway, in downtown Los Angeles’ Jewelry District.

February 28, 2011February 25, 2011

Yamashiro Restaurant

Last Monday night, the Grim Cheaper and I headed out to fave restaurant Yamashiro in Hollywood to grab some drinks to celebrate the six month anniversary of our wedding. I can hardly believe that it has already been six months, by the way. While in some ways it feels as if my wedding took place a lifetime ago, in many ways it seems as if it all occurred just yesterday. Anyway, while I have blogged about Yamashiro once before, back in February of 2008, my post was not very thorough and at the time I was unsure of how to make screen captures. So, I decided that the restaurant was definitely worthy of a re-post. Here goes!

Yamashiro was built in 1914 on a seven acre parcel of land situated 250 feet above the famed Hollywood Boulevard. The structure, which took three years to construct and was modeled after a palace located in the Yamashiro Mountains in Kyoto, Japan, was originally the private home of two German brothers who were dealers and collectors of Asian antiques. In 1922, one of the brothers passed away and the property was sold and transformed into the private clubhouse of the exclusive Hollywood 400 Club, where the Hollywood elite would socialize. During World War II, the building fell into serious disrepair and in 1948 it was purchased by a developer named Thomas O. Glover who intended to demolish the property to make way for a hotel. While readying the property for tear-down, Thomas discovered antique silk wallpaper hidden behind layers of thick black paint and realized he had a treasure on his hands. He immediately set about restoring the property to its former glory, whereupon he opened it as an upscale Cal-Asian restaurant named Yamashiro. Over six decades later, the place is still going strong and is a favorite of both celebrities and location scouts alike. Just a few of the stars who have been spotted at Yamashiro over the years include Matthew Perry, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Melissa Joan Hart, Nicole Eggert, LeAnn Rimes, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Affleck, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Luke Perry, Danny Glover, Rene Russo, Chris Rock, George Clooney, Claire Danes, Neve Campbell, Chris O’Donnell, and Halle Berry.

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And it is not very hard to see what attracts them. Besides serving up EXCELLENT food (the Butter Lettuce Wraps and Crispy Chicken dishes are my favorites!), the ambiance is to die for. Walking through Yamashiro’s front doors is like stepping back in time to ancient Japan.

The restaurant’s Inner Courtyard, with its retractable roof, sparkling waterfalls, and central koi pond, literally looks like a set taken straight out of a movie.

And the sprawling exterior gardens, which boast koi ponds, Japanese flowers, and a 600-year-old pagoda that is said to be the oldest structure currently standing in California, are absolutely breathtaking to walk through.

The restaurant’s most incredible feature, though, has to be its striking 360-degree views of Hollywood, Downtown Los Angeles, Century City, and the Pacific Ocean –

views which only get more spectacular at night!

And in an intriguing bit of trivia, each night the light on the spire located at the top of the Capital Records building (pictured above) intermittently spells out “H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D” in old Morse Code. So incredibly cool!

Yamashiro has a long and varied filming history. Way back in 1957, the restaurant appeared in the movie Sayonara as the American Officer’s Club where Major Lloyd ‘Ace’ Gruver (aka Marlon Brando), Eileen Webster (aka Patricia Owens), Mrs. Webster (aka Martha Scott), and Lieutenant General Mark Webster (aka Kent Smith) spent time while in Japan.

In the “A Fistful of Yen” segment from 1977’s The Kentucky Fried Movie, Yamashiro stood in for a Japanese palace.

In 1997’s Playing God, Yamashiro was used as the residence where Raymond Blossom (aka Timothy Hutton) lived.

In 2000’s Gone in Sixty Seconds, Yamashiro is where Mirror Man (aka TJ Cross) posed as a valet to steal a car.

In 2005’s Memoirs of a Geisha, Yamashiro showed up twice. It was first used as the spot where Chiyo (aka Suzuka Ohgo) took dancing lessons as a young girl.

And it also appeared later as the place where the large party was held in honor of Sayuri’s (aka Ziyi Zhang’s) debut.

In the Season 6 episode of The Hills titled “Loves Me Not”, Lo Bosworth and boyfriend Scott Hochstadt celebrated their one-year anniversary at Yamashiro. The restaurant was also supposedly used in 1987’s Blind Date, but I scanned through the movie earlier today while writing this post and did not see it anywhere.

On a stalking side note – my good friend Nat, who lives in San Francisco, just sent me a package this past Friday. In it was the book pictured above. Cutest. Present. Ever. Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Yamashiro Hollywood is located at 1999 Sycamore Avenue in Hollywood. The restaurant is open nightly, starting at 5 p.m. each Saturday and Sunday and at 5:30 p.m. each Monday through Thursday. You can visit Yamashiro’s official website here.

January 14, 2010January 14, 2010

Joe Jost’s from “Win a Date with Tad Hamilton”

As I’ve mentioned countless times before, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton is one of my all time favorite movies. And I have long been dying to stalk the restaurant which stood in for Lil’ Dickens, the Frazier’s Bottom bar where Rosalie (aka Kate Bosworth), Pete (aka Topher Grace), Cathy (aka Ginnifer Goodwin), and Tad (aka Josh Duhamel – sigh!) hung out in the flick. In real life, that bar is named Joe Jost’s and it is actually located in Long Beach, California, a good 2,300 miles west of the real Frazier’s Bottom. So, since we were in the area this past weekend, I just had to drag my fiancé right out to stalk the place.

Joe Jost’s was founded in 1924 by a man named, you guessed it, Joe Jost, who was born in a small town in Yugoslavia. At only 16 years of age, after a four year apprenticeship in a barbershop, Joe left Yugoslavia and immigrated to the U.S. He first settled in New York City where he continued his work as a barber for a few years before moving to the West Coast and setting up a home in Upland, California. In 1920, Joe opened up the first Joe Jost’s, a combination barber shop/pool hall/bar/restaurant, in Newport Beach where he sold such goods as candy, cigarettes, and because prohibition was in effect, a non-alcoholic drink known as “near beer”. In 1924, Joe moved his unique shop to its current location on Anaheim Street in Long Beach. It wasn’t long, though, before the Barbering Commission closed down the barber shop portion of the establishment, claiming that cutting hair in close proximity to alcohol being served was not “safe”. LOL So, Joe abruptly removed his barbershop chairs and installed booths – the very same booths where Joe’s customers still sit today! So cool! 🙂 Joe’s enjoyed immediate success as a restaurant and even managed to sustain itself throughout the depression years. To date, the place has served over 5,000,000 Joe’s Special Sandwiches, over 7,000,000 pickled eggs, over 15,000,000 glasses of beer, and over 1,800,000 pounds of Marmion’s peanuts! Joe’s is such an institution in Long Beach, in fact, that a term known as “josting” has been coined. Josting refers to the act of taking a photograph of oneself in different locations all around the world while wearing a Joe Jost’s T-Shirt. And, let me tell you, the T-shirts have been EVERYWHERE! Joe’s walls are literally COVERED in such photographs and I can’t tell you how incredible it was to be looking at the hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of pictures of said patrons – always with their backs to the camera so that the Joe’s logo can be clearly seen – in such far off places as the Pyramids in Egypt, Heidelberg Castle in Germany, Namoto Island in Fiji, and the Arctic Circle (not kidding!). Most amazing of all, though, were the numerous photographs of soldiers currently stationed in Iraq wearing Joe’s T-shirts. Incredible! What an unbelievably cool tradition!!!

Because my fiancé and I were first-timers, we had to try one of everything on the menu. And I have to say that even though I am a horribly picky eater, I LOVED it all! The pickled egg (pictured above) – which sounds disgusting, I know – was incredible, the Marmion’s peanuts were de-lish!, and the Special . . . oh my god, the Special! What can I even say about it except that it was simply A-MA-ZING! Joe’s Special consists of a homemade Polish sausage (made from their own secret recipe), a pickle, a slice of Swiss Cheese, and mustard smacked in between two slices of rye bread. And, oh my lord, is it good!

Because Lil’ Dickens is the regular hangout of Rosalie, Pete, and Cathy, Joe Jost’s shows up quite a few times in Win a Date. The areas used include the main bar;

and the billiards room, which was decked out with tables and chairs for the filming.

Sadly, though, Pete and Rosie’s dart board was just a prop that was brought in for the filming and is not there in real life. 🙁

Oddly enough, the area of the restaurant that I was most interested in stalking was the men’s bathroom, not so much because I wanted to see it in person, but because I wanted to verify if it was really there. As I had suspected, though, the Lil’ Dickens bathroom, in which Pete confronts Tad telling him that if he breaks Rosalie’s heart he’ll tear him to pieces with his “bare hands or vicious rhetoric” LOL, is not the real Joe Jost’s bathroom. Joe’s men’s room actually consists of one single room with a toilet and a sink (yes, I actually sent my fiancé in there to report back to me!), and because the scene called for a considerably larger restroom with actual stalls, a set had to be built. Interestingly enough, though, according to Dan, one of the SUPER nice Joe’s crew members that I spoke with, the Lil’ Dickens bathroom set was actually built right there on the Joe Jost’s property, in the back area of the restaurant.

The crew even ended up using the real Joe’s men’s room door, after making some small modifications, as the door of the Lil’ Dickens men’s room set. So cool!!!!

The crew also modified the real life Joe Jost sign, which is located in the pool hall area of the restaurant, into a Lil’ Dickens sign for the shoot. Love it! 🙂

Win a Date is hardly the only production to film at Joe’s, though. The restaurant is also where Kevin Costner took Whitney Houston on a date in 1992’s The Bodyguard.

And where they danced to John Doe’s version of the song “I Will Always Love You”, which Whitney calls “depressing” in the scene. LOL

The interior of Joe’s also stood in for the bar where Angelina Jolie worked in Gone in 60 Seconds.

The exterior of that bar (pictured above), however, was a different location altogether.

Joe’s showed up twice in the 2007 movie License to Wed, first as the site of Mandy Moore and John Krasinski’s pre-marriage group counseling . . .

. . . and second as the spot where John and his friend, DeRay Davis, grab a drink towards the end of the movie.

Producers definitely took some liberties when filming the exterior scenes for License to Wed, though. In the flick, it is made to appear as if Joe’s is part of a tall building located underneath the L Train somewhere in Chicago. In real life, though, Joe’s is a simple, small, one-story structure located on a busy Long Beach street corner. I SO love how they incorporated the real life Joe’s storefront into the digitally altered Chicago-area establishing shots, though, rather than using a real Chicago location for the exterior. So cool! Joe’s has also been featured in the movies Madison, The Vanishing, and True Confessions and in episodes of Chance of a Lifetime, The ‘60s, Roswell, Boomtown, Clubhouse, and Classmates. You can see a full list of Joe’s Hollywood credits here.

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Joe Jost’s is a VERY cool place and I honestly can’t recommend stalking it – or ordering up one of its Specials – enough!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Joe Jost’s is located at 2803 East Anaheim Street in Long Beach. You can visit their website here.

February 11, 2008February 13, 2009

Yamashiro Restaurant – Looking Down on All of Hollywood!

On Saturday, my boyfriend took me to dinner at a former Japanese palace called Yamashiro, located in Hollywood – 250 feet above Hollywood Boulevard, to be exact. The restaurant has the most amazing views of Hollywood and surrounding LA that I have ever seen and it was a pretty incredible place to spend an evening – and the food was absolutely yummy! And, need I mention, Yamashiro has also served as a backdrop for countless movie and TV productions. 🙂

Yamashiro, which means “Mountain Palace” in Japanese, was actually one of the very first Hollywood hot spots. Built in 1914, on over seven acres of land, as a private home to the Bernheimer Brothers, it was modeled after a palace located in the Yamashiro Mountains in Kyoto, Japan. After the death of one of the brothers in 1922, Yamashiro was sold and became home to celeb hot spot the “400 Club” – an exclusive hangout for the Hollywood Royalty of the 20’s and 30’s. Sadly, during WWII the property was destroyed by vandals due to anti-Japanese sentiment, and it fell into disarray. It later became a boys’ military school. The property remained in disrepair until it was purchased by Thomas O. Glover in 1948, who painstakingly returned Yamashiro to its original glory. The pagoda, located in Yamashiro’s garden area, is actually the oldest structure in California!

While you are there, be sure to walk through the gardens on the property and take a look at the exquisite inner courtyard inside the restaurant. If you visit Yamashiro at night, keep your eyes on the Capital Records Building – the light on the spire atop the building spells out the word “Hollywood” in old Morse Code – a little tidbit of Hollywood trivia that I didn’t know until last night. You learn something new everyday!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Yamashiro is located at the very top of Hollywood at 1999 N. Sycamore Street. If you go there for dinner be sure to try the Yamashiro Crispy Chicken and the Butter Lettuce Wraps – so yummy! Yamashiro would actually be the perfect place to have Valentine’s dinner – or a romantic Valentine’s drink! Besides being a great place to eat, Yamashiro has a vast filming history – including being featured in the movies Gone in 60 Seconds, Blind Date, Memoirs of a Geisha, and countless commercials and TV shows.