Jules’ House from “The Intern”

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For our recent Big Apple vacation, the Grim Cheaper and I took a red eye into New York, leaving Palm Springs at 11 p.m. and landing in NYC at 6:30 a.m.  Working off zero sleep, we were obviously exhausted upon arrival (me especially considering the copious amounts of calming drugs I ingested to curtail my flight anxiety), but obviously were not able to check into our hotel at such an early hour.  So what else were we to do, but head out for some stalking?  (And major props to the GC for going all-in with me that day.  Despite the lack of sleep and even after we were informed that our room was ready, we decided to stay up the rest of the day and stalked from one end of the city to the other!  “We can sleep when we’re dead” pretty much became our trip motto.)  For our first foray, we ventured over to Brooklyn so that I could see one of the locales I was most excited about – the house where Jules (Anne Hathaway) lived with her husband, Matt (Anders Holm), and daughter, Paige (JoJo Kushner), in The Intern.  The romcom was easily my favorite movie of 2015 (I’ve literally watched it about twenty times since it came out) and Jules’ charming brownstone was easily my favorite location from it.

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I began the search for Jules’ house the moment I found out we were headed to New York.  Said to be located in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood in the movie, thanks to this Architectural Digest article I learned that the pad was actually a renovated brownstone in Clinton Hill.  That information led me to a post on the Brownstone website that stated that The Intern had done some filming at a home located at 385 Grand Avenue.  Upon closer investigation, though, I discovered that the Brownstone website reporting was slightly off.  Jules’ house can actually be found at 383 Grand Avenue.

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Several of the houses along the 300 block of Grand Avenue bear strikingly similar façades, which made figuring out the exact spot where filming took place a bit difficult.  I finally managed to pinpoint the locale, though, thanks to a few unique characteristics.  Namely, the edge of the faux portico above Jules’ front door was shown to be a greater distance away from the crosshead of the window directly next to it.  That was not the case with the neighboring homes.  Jules’ house, which has a black door, was also shown to be situated next to a dwelling with a brown door and stairs with a concrete railing, and two doors away from a home with a brown door and stairs with a metal railing.  From there, I simply headed to Google Street View and searched for the residence on that stretch of Grand with a large gap between its portico and window crosshead and a black door/concrete railing combo that was located next door to a house with a brown door and a concrete railing and two doors down from a house with a brown door and a metal railing.  It was not long before I found the right spot.

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Jules’ brownstone was featured extensively throughout The Intern.

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In the movie, Jules says, “I love this house.  It just looks happy to me, like if it was in a kid’s book, it would make you feel good when you turned the page and saw it,” which is the perfect way to describe the place.

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In person, the residence did not disappoint.

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It is not very hard to see how filmmakers came to choose it for the shoot.

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The dwelling is charming, picturesque, and screams of being the quintessential New York brownstone.

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It is very reminiscent, in fact, of Carrie Bradshaw’s (Sarah Jessica Parker) idyllic home from Sex and the City.

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The entire street is quite heavenly, actually.

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I was shocked to learn while researching this post that filming took place inside of the brownstone, as well, which is not in keeping with a typical Nancy Meyers shoot.  Usually, the esteemed director constructs elaborate sets for the interior of her characters’ homes, as was the case with It’s Complicated and The Holiday.  But for The Intern, the actual inside of 383 Grand was utilized as the interior of Jules’ spectacular house.  You can check out some photographs of the inside of the residence here.

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Though many of the living areas look much the same in reality as they did onscreen, the kitchen was completely redone for the shoot.  The property’s dark wood and glass cabinets were swapped out for dark blue drawers and open shelving, the center island was replaced with a larger, bluer version that was then moved to the center of the room, and the oven was relocated to the back wall.  You can check out how the kitchen is set up in real life here, here, and here.

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Though the actual space is gorgeous, personally, I prefer the look of Jules’ kitchen.

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According to a fascinating 2016 The New York Times article, the homeowners had to move out of the property for 11 weeks to accommodate the production, for which they were paid a whopping six figures!  The lengthy shoot irritated neighbors, though, and the city eventually put a temporary moratorium on filming in the area.

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The moratorium was rather unfortunate for the homeowners as the 4,032-square-foot, 4-story, 5-bedroom pad, which was originally built in 1900 and includes a separate ground-floor unit, is a virtual A-Lister of locations.  According to The New York Times article, the residence has been featured in countless shoots since its onscreen debut in the 2011 movie Friends with Kids, in which it was used to portray two locales.  It served as both the home of Missy (Kristen Wiig) and Ben (Jon Hamm) in the beginning of the flick . . .

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. . . and then later masked as the dwelling that Julie Keller (Jennifer Westfeldt) moved into.

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Some of the home’s other credits include a Nordstrom commercial and print ads for West Elm and Best Buy.

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

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Jules’ house from The Intern is located at 383 Grand Avenue in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood.  (Note – the map link I’ve included is for 381 Grand Avenue as, for some reason, the 383 Grand Avenue link does not lead to the correct house.)

Bob’s Big Boy Broiler in Downey from “License to Drive”

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Hold onto your hats, my fellow stalkers, ‘cause today’s post is going to be a long one!  Another Bob’s Big Boy location that the Grim Cheaper and I stalked recently was the legendary Bob’s Big Boy Broiler, aka Johnie’s Broiler, located on Firestone Boulevard in Downey.  I had been longing to stalk the historic restaurant ever since 1988 when it stood in for Archie’s Atomic Drive-In in fave movie License to Drive.  Sadly though, shortly after I moved to Southern California ten years ago, the eatery shuttered it doors and was then later partially – and illegally – demolished.  It was not until this past year that the place re-opened and I was finally, finally able to drag the GC out there to see it in person.

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Johnie’s Broiler was first founded in 1958 by former Clock-Broiler-restaurant-chain-partner Harvey Ortner and his wife, Minnie.  In 1950, the couple purchased a poultry farm located at the corner of Firestone Boulevard and Old River School Road in Downtown Downey and hired architect Paul B. Clayton to design a Googie-style coffee shop on the 2-acre site.  According to Clayton’s 2005 obituary in the Los Angeles Times, the architect later called the restaurant “the most important commercial design of his entire career”.  Harvey’s Broiler, as it was then-named, was an immediate success, sometimes attracting over 5,000 patrons in a single weekend.  Much as it was depicted in License to Drive, the spot was a popular high school hang-out where teens would come to grab a bite to eat and show off their cars.  In 1965, the Ortners retired and sold their restaurant to a man with the last name of Johnson.  He changed the eatery’s moniker to Johnie’s Broiler.  Shortly thereafter, a former Harvey’s chef named Christos Smyrniotis purchased the property.  He still owns the restaurant to this day.   And while it continued to be successful, especially as a filming location, for whatever reason Johnie’s closed its doors in February of 2002.  It was then transformed into a used car dealership and the interior was heavily remodeled to suit the needs of its new tenant.

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When the car dealership’s lease expired a few years later, a new tenant named Aras Yanik moved in.  Yanik immediately filed demolition permits with the City of Downey, but those permits were rejected.  Local residents and area preservations were horrified at Yanik’s plans to level the historic site and quickly took action, having the property declared eligible for the California Register of Historical Places, which protected it, in theory at least, from any alterations.  But despite the historical status and the city’s rejection of the demolition permits, at approximately 3 p.m. on the afternoon of Sunday, January 7th, 2007, Yanik illegally began to demolish the restaurant.  Police were called in and Yanik was slapped with three misdemeanor charges and his lease on the property was revoked.  Sadly though, the damage was done.  The beloved coffee shop had been almost entirely destroyed.

You can watch a video which features numerous photographs of the destruction by clicking above.

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In April 2008, Bob’s Big Boy franchise owner Jim Louder signed a lease with Smyrniotis and, along with help from Downey’s Redevelopment Agency and the Downey Historical Society, set about salvaging materials from the wreckage site and rebuilt the eatery in its entirety, using the original Harvey’s blueprints.  The restoration project won the Los Angeles Conservancy’s prestigious President’s Award and the new Bob’s Big Boy Broiler opened to much fanfare on October 19, 2009.

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Johnie’s Broiler has been featured in countless productions over the years, many more so than I could ever dream of chronicling here.  But I will do my best to try.  In License to Drive, Les Anderson (aka Corey Haim) and his buddies, Dean (aka Corey Feldman) and Charles (aka Michael Manasseri), get into a scuffle with some punks while dining at the fictional high school hangout “Archie’s Atomic Drive-In”.

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In 1988’s My Stepmother Is an Alien, Johnie’s is where Celeste Martin (aka Kim Basinger) goes to find breakfast recipes.

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In 1989’s She’s Out of Control, Doug Simpson (aka Tony Danza) takes his daughter Katie (aka Ami Dolenz) and her boyfriend Joey (aka Dana Ashbrook) to Johnie’s for a bite to eat.

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In 1989’s Earth Girls Are Easy, Valerie (aka Geena Davis), Candy (aka Julie Brown) and their new alien friends, Mac (aka Jeff Goldblum), Wiploc (aka Jim Carrey), and Zeebo (aka Damon Wayans), drive by Johnie’s Broiler in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene.

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In 1993’s What’s Love Got to Do with It, Johnie’s is where Ike Turner (aka Laurence Fishburne) and Tina Turner (aka Angela Bassett) get into a fist-fight.

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In 1993’s Short Cuts, Johnie’s is the restaurant where Doreen Piggot (aka Lily Tomlin) works.

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Johnie’s shows up twice in the 1994 comedy Reality Bites.  It first appears as the spot where Lelaina Pierce (aka Winona Ryder) runs into Troy Dyer (aka Ethan Hawke) after her disastrous job interview during which she is unable to define the word “irony”.

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It later pops up in my very favorite scene in the entire movie as the restaurant where Lelaina and Vickie Miner (aka Janeane Garogalo) discuss the television series Melrose Place.

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In 1995’s Heat, Johnie’s Broiler is where Neil McCauley (aka Robert De Niro) tries to kill one of his crew members, Waingro (aka Kevin Gage).

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In 1997’s The Game, a destitute Nicholas Van Orton (aka Michael Douglas) stumbles into Johnie’s to ask patrons for a ride to San Francisco.

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In 1998’s Can’t Hardly Wait, Johnie’s is where Preston Meyers (aka Ethan Embry) meets The Angel (aka Jenna Elfman) while trying to call Barry Manilow on a payphone.

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In the Season 7 episode of The X-Files titled “Orison”, which aired in 1999, Johnie’s stood in for a supposed-bus stop/coffee shop in Harrisburg, Illinois where Fox Mulder (aka David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (aka Gillian Anderson) search for a murder suspect.

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In the 1999 movie Jawbreaker, Johnie’s is where Courtney (aka Rose McGowan), Julie (aka Rebecca Gayheart), and Marcie (aka a pre-Dexter Julie Benz) discover that they have accidentally killed their friend.

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In my favorite scene from 2000’s Bounce, the diner was where Abby Janello (aka Gwyneth Paltrow) removed toilet paper off of the shoe of an unknowing woman.

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Supposedly the restaurant also appeared in Mission: Impossible II, but I scanned through the movie earlier today and did not see it anywhere.  It did however appear in Limp Bizkit’s 2000 video for the song “Take A Look Around”, which was featured on the Mission: Impossible II soundtrack.

You can watch that video by clicking above.

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Johnie’s was also used in the 2000 music video for the Bob Dylan song “Things Have Changed”.

You can watch that video by clicking above.

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Johnie’s was also used extensively in the music video for the 2001 Staind song “For You”.

You can watch that video by clicking above.

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It also popped up in the 2001 Kurupt “It’s Over” music video.

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A cartoon rendering of the restaurant was even made for that video . . .

. . . which you can watch by clicking above.

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The diner was featured in the 2001 music video for Madonna’s “What It Feels Like For a Girl”.

Which you can watch by clicking above.

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It was also used in Knoc-turn’al’s “The Knoc” music video in 2002.

You can watch that video by clicking above.

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In the ultra-creepy 2002 movie One Hour Photo, Johnie’s is the coffee shop where Seymour Parrish (aka Robin Williams) ate a late-night dinner after getting off work at the local photo lab.

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Most recently, Bob’s Big Boy Broiler appeared in the Season 4 episode of Mad Men titled “Tomorrowland”, in the scene in which Sally Draper (aka Kiernan Shipka) spills a milkshake and her father, Don Draper (aka Jon Hamm), is shocked to discover that his girlfriend, Megan Calvet (aka Jessica Pare), is not upset by it.

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That scene was shot in a booth located in Johnie’s side room, which was the same room that appeared in the Melrose Place scene in Reality Bites.

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There is quite a bit of erroneous information out there about Johnie’s Broiler’s filming history.  For instance, the 2003 flick Matchstick Men was not filmed at Johnie’s, but at KJ’s Diner & Restaurant near LAX; 1998’s American History X was not filmed at Johnie’s in Downey, but at the Johnie’s Coffee Shop Restaurant located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile District of L.A.; 1980’s Midnight Madness was also shot at Johnie’s Wilshire, not at the Broiler; as was the Sean Kingston video for the song “Beautiful Girls”.

Until next time, Happy Stalking and Happy Voting – don’t forget to vote for me to be the face of About Me!  Today is the VERY LAST day to vote, so please get those votes in!   Smile

Stalk It: Bob’s Big Boy Broiler, aka Johnie’s Broiler, aka Archie’s Atomic Drive-In from License to Drive, is located at 7447 Firestone Boulevard in Downey.  You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank from “Heat”

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While doing some stalking in the Burbank area way back in November of last year, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to the Bob’s Big Boy restaurant on Riverside Drive to grab a bite to eat.  And even though the eatery has quite a vast Hollywood history, is a filming location, serves fried food (my favorite!), and is currently the oldest remaining Bob’s in the entire restaurant chain, for whatever reason in my ten-plus years of living in Los Angeles I had yet to dine there.  But, let me tell you, the place was well worth the wait!  Both the GC and I absolutely LOVED it!

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Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank was originally built in 1949 by franchise owners Scott MacDonald and Ward Albert, and was designed by Wayne McAllister, the legendary Googie-style architect who also designed the Biltmore Hotel’s Biltmore Bowl ballroom, the Sands Hotel and Desert Inn in Las Vegas, and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel’s Cinegrill nightclub.  In 1993, after several changes in  ownership and a few dining room remodels, the property was purchased by the MacDonald family, who immediately set about an extensive renovation in order to restore the Streamline-Moderne-style eatery to its original glory.  The MacDonald’s also added a front patio to the premises, re-fabbed the famous exterior signage, and, best of all, re-instated car-hop service from 5 to 10 p.m. each Friday and Saturday night.  So incredibly cool!  In 1993, the restaurant was also deemed a California Point of Historical Interest.

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Visiting Bob’s Big Boy, one is immediately transported back in time, thanks largely to its curved counter and open kitchen ;

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cantilevered roof and petal-like umbrellas,

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and commanding 50s-style signage –

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the most impressive of which is the 70-foot-tall free-standing display sign pictured above.

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And the food!  Oh, the food!  I ordered the chicken strips and they were absolutely out-of-this-world!  And don’t even get me started on the ranch dressing!  I was almost ready to start eating it by itself, soup-style, it was so good!  The GC opted for the famous “Big Boy” double-decker hamburger, which he loved.  The “Big Boy” was originally invented by Bob’s Big Boy founder Bob Wian in 1937 and was the precursor to the now-legendary McDonald’s Big Mac.  He created the sandwich as a joke one night when one of his regular customers asked for a “different” kind of burger.  And the rest, as they say, is hamburger history.  Amazingly, Bob was also one of the very first restaurant owners to offer his employees a profit-sharing plan and medical insurance.

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Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank has been a celebrity hangout since the very beginning.  Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there over the years include Bob Hope (who was a regular), James Dean, Mickey Rooney, Dana Andrews, Jonathan Winters, Alexis Smith, Debbie Reynolds, Craig Stevens, Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Taylor Lautner, Tiffany Thornton, Tori Spelling, Melissa Joan Hart, David Henrie, Taylor Swift, Joey Lawrence, Cheech Marin, Selena Gomez, Jay Leno, David Lynch, Dennis Haskins, and Freddie Prinze Jr.  During the summer of 1965, all four members of The Beatles famously dined at one of the eatery’s back booths, which is pictured above.

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That occasion was marked with the gold plaque pictured above, which one employee told me has been stolen countless times over the years.  I cannot tell you how much I hate hearing things like that! Apparently, the owners were sick of constantly having to replace the sign, so for a time they left the wall in that area blank.  Thankfully though, the plaque was back in its proper place when I stalked the restaurant last year.

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And, as I mentioned above, Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank is also a filming location!  The diner was featured twice in the 1995 heist movie Heat.  It first popped us as the restaurant where a fresh-out-of-prison Donald Breedan (aka Dennis Haysbert) got hired as a janitor/cook.

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Towards the end of the movie, it shows up once again in the scene in which Neil McCauley (aka Robert De Niro), Michael Cheritto (aka Tom Sizemore), and Chris Shiherlis (aka Val Kilmer) convince Donald to be the driver for their upcoming bank heist.  Apparently there was once a plaque displayed in the booth where that scene took place commemorating the occasion, but it was stolen countless times as well and had yet to be replaced in November.

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In the Season 8 episode of Dancing with the Stars, Derek Hough took Lil’ Kim to Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank to get her into character for their upcoming 50s jive performance.  You can watch a clip of that segment being filmed here.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking and Happy Voting – don’t forget to vote for me to be the face of About Me!  There are only five voting days left – you can vote once every 24 hours now through Tuesday, September 20th.  Smile

Stalk It: Bob’s Big Boy, from Heat, is located at 4211 West Riverside Drive in Burbank.  You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.  Priscilla’s Coffee Tea & Gifts, from Desperate Housewives, which I blogged about back in December of 2009, is located just across the street from Bob’s at 4150 Riverside Drive in Burbank.