Tag: television locations

Pickwick’s Pub from “The Office”

This past weekend, I dragged my husband (that is SO weird to say!) out to stalk Pickwick’s Pub – the Woodland Hills watering hole that stands in for the Dunder Mifflin gang’s favorite local hangout, Poor Richard’s Pub, on fave show The Office. And while there is actually a real life Poor Richard’s Pub located in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where the series is based, thankfully, both the interiors and exteriors which appear on the show can be found right here in Los Angeles, just about ten miles away from Chandler Valley Studios where the series is taped. I am ashamed to admit that I spent more than a few hours online trying to track down this locale and came up completely empty-handed. Thankfully though, fellow stalker Lavonna was also in on the hunt and managed to find this Poor Richard’s page on the Dunderpedia website, which led us to the right place. And while Poor Richard’s Pub is referred to almost weekly on The Office, Pickwick’s has actually only been used for filming twice.

Pickwick’s Pub has been a San Fernando Valley staple for over three and a half decades, ever since it first opened way back in 1974. The watering hole suffered a brief set-back in 2004 when it burned to the ground after a disgruntled customer set fire to the place. The rebuilding project took a full year to complete, but in 2005 the bar reopened and has been going strong ever since. And, let me tell you, the place is not your ordinary, everyday pub. The menu is quite extensive and features everything from traditional British fare such as bangers & mash and Irish beef stew to Indian delicacies like chicken curry and pork korma to such American favorites as chicken pot pie and homemade mac and cheese. There is also an extensive breakfast menu, which is available all day. And, let me tell you, the food was excellent! Our waitress was also extremely nice and answered all of my silly little questions about the filming of The Office. Unfortunately, she didn’t work at Pickwick’s at the time either of the episodes was filmed, so she didn’t have much insider information to share with me. 🙁 Pickwick’s is a super cute and cozy little place and seems to be mostly inhabited by regulars. It definitely has a hometown feel to it and is exactly the kind of place I picture Pam and Jim grabbing a drink after work. 🙂 Pickwick’s also features a trivia night every Wednesday starting at 8 p.m. and an 80’s acoustic band which plays live every Saturday night – both of which sound like an absolute blast! 🙂

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As I mentioned above, Pickwick’s Pub has appeared twice on The Office – first in the Season 3 episode titled “Cocktails”, in which Pam Beesly (aka Jenna Fischer), Roy Anderson (aka David Denman), Kelly Kapoor (aka Mindy Kaling), and the rest of the Dunder Mifflin crew cut out of work early in order to grab drinks together at their favorite local hangout. It is at Pickwick’s that Pam admits to Roy that she and Jim once kissed.

The mirror which Roy subsequently breaks in a fit of anger is, of course, not there in real life.

Neither is the Toy Chest game machine where Toby Flenderson (aka Paul Lieberstein) spends the evening trying to win Pam a duck.

The bar showed up again in the Season 4 episode titled “Local Ad”, in which the Dunder Mifflin gang gathers together to watch the airing of their recently-filmed local television commercial.

A picture of Steve Carell during the filming of that episode is even on display on the official Pickwick Pub website. So darn cool!

The exterior that is shown on The Office is actually Pickwick’s back entrance, which looks EXACTLY the same in person as it does on the show, except for the Poor Richard’s signage, of course. Love it!

Fellow stalker and Office aficionado Owen, who I am EXTREMELY jealous of!, recently made a stalking pilgrimage to Scranton, Pennsylvania where he got to visit the real life Poor Richard’s Pub, which in reality is located inside of a bowling alley. As Owen wrote when he emailed me the above pictures, “Does that carpet not scream bowling alley?!?!” LOL

Sadly, the bar was closed when Owen showed up to stalk it, but as you can see in the above photograph, which I got off of the Poor Richard’s website, the place does bear a striking resemblance to Pickwick’s. Both bars have a very British/Tudor-style look to them and both also appear to display Christmas lights year-round.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Lavonna for finding this location and to fellow stalker Owen for loaning me his photographs of the real Poor Richard’s Pub to display in this post! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Pickwick’s Pub from The Office is located at 21010 Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills. You can visit the bar’s official website here. The real Poor Richard’s Pub is located in Scranton, Pennsylvania at 125 Beech Street, inside of South Side Bowl. You can visit the official Poor Richard’s website here.

September 15, 2010
Griffith Observatory

A couple of months ago I dragged my parents and my then-fiancé/now husband out to Los Feliz to do some stalking of the Griffith Observatory in Griffith Park – a place which I had never before visited despite having lived in Los Angeles for over a decade. I had actually wanted to stalk the Observatory for close to 18 years – ever since November of 1992, to be exact – thanks to the fact that it was featured in a Season 3 episode of fave show Beverly Hills, 90210. But more on that later.

The land that now encompasses Griffith Park was donated to the City of Los Angeles by Welsh industrialist Colonel Griffith J. Griffith (and no, that was not a typo – the guy’s first name was actually the same as his last!) on December 16, 1896. Griffith stipulated that the donated parcel of land, which measured 3,015 acres, was to be used as a public park. He said, “It must be made a place of rest and relaxation for the masses, a resort for the rank and file, for the plain people. I consider it my obligation to make Los Angeles a happy, cleaner, and finer city. I wish to pay my debt of duty in this way to the community in which I have prospered.” When Griffith passed away 26 years later, in 1919, he bequeathed the majority of his $1.5 million estate to the city for the purposes of building a theatre and an observatory inside of the park. Construction on the observatory, which was designed by architect John C. Austin and engineer Russell W. Porter, began on June 20th, 1933 and the building opened to the public just under two years later, on May 14, 1935.

The Griffith Observatory, which sits high atop Mount Hollywood, features a 300-seat state-of-the-art planetarium, a 2,700-square foot multimedia theatre, a Zeiss refracting telescope, an exhibit hall, and, as you can see above, views which are nothing short of incredible.

Hollywood location scouts took notice of the property right from the very beginning when it was chosen to appear in the 1935 movie The Phantom Empire shortly after its opening. Since that time, the Observatory has been featured in hundreds upon hundreds of productions – far too many for me to be able to properly catalog here, but I’ll do my best to give my fellow stalkers a broad overview.

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As I mentioned above, the Observatory was featured in a Season 3 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. That episode was titled “Rebel With A Cause” and it was, ironically enough, one of my least favorite episodes in the entire history of the series. The episode centers around the break-up of longtime couple Dylan McKay (aka Luke Perry) and Brenda Walsh (aka my girl Shannen Doherty), immediately after which Dylan puts the moves on Brenda’s best friend Kelly Taylor (aka Jennie Garth). Mind you, Dylan and Kelly had also been seeing each other behind Brenda’s back for an entire summer at that point in the series. Dylan then decides to take Kelly out on a date – just two nights after his break-up with Brenda! – and when Brenda randomly catches the two of them together in a restaurant, she calls Kelly a “bimbo” and Kelly actually has the nerve to be mad at Brenda. I mean, HELLO, Kelly! Not only did you spend an entire summer making out with your BEST FRIEND’S boyfriend, but when said best friend and said boyfriend break-up, it’s not 48 hours later that you are out on a date with him. With friends like that, who needs enemies?? Let me tell you, had that happened to me, I would have been calling Kelly a whole lot worse things than “bimbo”. And yes, I realize Beverly Hills, 90210 is just a television show and that the “Rebel With A Cause” episode aired almost two decades ago, but the whole thing still seriously upsets me! But I digress. Anyway, in the episode, before taking her out to dinner, Dylan brings Kelly to the Griffith Observatory, where they watch a show in the planetarium.

After the show, the two little home-wreckers head outside for a heart-to-heart chat and, even though I was strongly opposed to the whole Kelly/Dylan romance, for whatever reason, it was the location of that chat that I was most interested in stalking.

I had a very difficult time locating the wall where Dylan and Kelly sat, though, as it is not in an easily-visible part of the building. It actually wasn’t until we were heading back to our car that I finally spotted the right place.

As it turns out, Kelly and Dylan’s wall is located in the eastern-most section of the Observatory. It is actually the wall to a ramp which leads to the back of the building and is located on the left-hand side of the Observatory (as you are facing it) and is denoted with a pink arrow in the above aerial view.

The Observatory’s most famous onscreen appearance was, of course, in the 1955 James Dean classic Rebel Without a Cause, which, amazingly enough, I have never actually seen! In the beginning of the flick, Jim (aka James Dean) and Judy (aka Natalie Wood), along with the rest of their high school class, go on a field trip to the Observatory where they watch a show in the planetarium.

And the very same wall from 90210 also appears in that scene.

Rebel’s final scene also takes place at the Observatory, but I do not want to post any screen caps of that scene as they would spoil the ending.

There is a statue of James Dean on display on the Observatory’s front lawn which commemorates the historic filming that took place there in 1955. So darn cool!

Griffith Observatory was also the site of the climatic scene in 1999’s hilarious comedy Bowfinger, in which renegade, wanna-be movie director Bowfinger (aka Steve Martin) and his ragamuffin film crew secretly tape Daisy (aka Heather Graham) and Kit Ramsey (aka Eddie Murphy) fighting off a fictitious band of aliens.

In the first Transformers movie, Mikaela Banes (aka Megan Fox) and Sam Witwicky (aka Shia LaBeouf) are at the Observatory when they witness a group of Transformers crash landing on earth in the form of meteorites.

In The Terminator, the Observatory is the spot where the Terminator (aka Arnold Schwarzenegger) first emerges from a time warp and begins his mission to kill Sarah Conner (aka Linda Hamilton).

In 2008’s Yes Man, the Observatory is the location of Allison’s (aka Zooey Deschanel’s) weekly jogging/photo class, during which Carl (aka Jim Carrey) crashes after drinking waaaaaaay too many Red Bull energy drinks.

It is also where Carl professes his love to Allison at the very end of the movie.

And it is during that ending scene that Carl and Allison run right by the exact spot where Beverly Hills, 90210 was filmed 16 years beforehand. 🙂

The scene in which Natalie Cook (aka Cameron Diaz), Dylan Sanders (aka Drew Barrymore) and Alex Munday (aka Lucy Liu) discover that Madison Lee (aka Demi Moore) is actually a fallen angel in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle takes place at the Observatory.

The observatory was also featured in the music video for Paula Abdul’s hit single “Rush Rush”, which was an homage to the movie Rebel Without a Cause.

You can watch the full video, which starred Keanu Reeves, by clicking above.

Griffith Observatory has also appeared in the movies Dragnet, Devil in a Blue Dress, The Rocketeer, House on Haunted Hill, Nancy Drew, and Earth Girls are Easy, and in episodes of NCIS: Los Angeles, 24, Star Trek Voyager, Alias, MacGyver, Melrose Place, Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Colbys.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Griffith Observatory is located at 2800 East Observatory Road, inside of Griffith Park, in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. You can visit the observatory’s official website here. Admission is free. The observatory is closed to the public on Mondays and Tuesdays.

September 14, 2010
Oscar’s House from “The Office”

Another filming location from The Office that I stalked recently was the ranch-style abode where accounting executive Oscar Martinez (aka Oscar Nunez) lives on the show. I found this location, as always, thanks to fellow stalker Owen who, along with a bit of assistance from fellow stalker Chas, of ItsFilmedThere, has somehow managed to track down pretty much every single locale that ever appeared on the show. Thank you, Owen!

While watching the Season 2 episode of the series titled “The Secret” a few years back, Owen spotted an address number of 5232 in the background of a scene. He immediately set about searching aerial views of neighborhoods near Chandler Valley Center Studios in Van Nuys, where the series is lensed, for homes with a 5232 address number, and, sure enough, it wasn’t long before he had found the right place. YAY! So, while I was in the area with my fiancé – ahem, my husband 🙂 – a few weeks ago, I dragged him right out to stalk Oscar’s abode!

Oscar’s house actually only appeared in “The Secret” episode and has yet to show up again on the series. In the episode, Oscar calls in sick to work on a Friday and his co-worker and part-time volunteer sheriff’s deputy Dwight Schrute (aka Rainn Wilson) becomes convinced that Oscar is not truly ill. Dwight decides to investigate the matter further and, after first conducting interviews with everyone in the office to get their take on whether Oscar is faking or not, he heads over to “the perp’s” house to see if he is actually ill. When he catches the not-yet-out-of-the-closet Oscar with another man in his driveway, he becomes ecstatic, drives up to the couple and proclaims, “Man, you are so busted! Ice skates, shopping bags! I think I know what’s going on here . . . you weren’t sick at all!” Not realizing that he has stumbled upon a much larger secret, Dwight blackmails Oscar into owing him “one great, big, giant favor redeemable by me at a time and place of my choosing.” Have I mentioned how much I love this show? 😉

I am very happy to report that, minus a few trees in the front yard, Oscar’s house looks exactly the same in person as it did on the show. Love it!

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Located less than a block away from Oscar’s house is the residence where Pam bought a lamp during “Michael Scott’s Dunder Mifflin Scranton Meredith Palmer Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Pro-Am Fun Run Race For the Cure” (and yes, that was the race’s actual name) in the Season 4 episode of the series titled “Fun Run”. During the race, Jim and Pam happen upon an estate sale at a local residence and instead of continuing on with the run in order to “prevent a disease that’s already been cured” (LOL), they decide to do some shopping. I know this probably goes without saying, but I also found this location thanks to fellow stalker Owen. And even though it only appeared very briefly in one episode of the series, because I was already in the area, I just had to stalk it!

And it, too, looks much the same in person as it did on the series, even though very little of it was ever actually seen in the episode.

Ironically enough, the “Fun Run” house looks like it could almost be a twin to Oscar’s house! Many homes in the area actually have that extra little roof gable above the garage and, therefore look quite a bit alike, so it is truly a feat that Owen was able to track down the houses which were used on the show.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding both of these locations!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Oscar’s house from The Office is located at 5232 Longridge Avenue in Van Nuys. The house where Pam buys the lamp in the “Fun Run” episode is located a few blocks north of Oscar’s house at 5306 Longridge Avenue.

September 1, 2010
Nate ‘n Al’s Delicatessen

One location that I have been wanting to stalk for quite some time now is the historic Nate ‘n Al Delicatessen in Beverly Hills, but because I don’t get out to that area very often, the restaurant had remained an unchecked item on my extremely long “To-Stalk” list for over a year. Until a couple of weeks ago, that is, when I finally dragged my fiancé to grab a bite to eat there after we had stalked Will Rogers Memorial Park from 90210, which is located nearby. And I have to say that the place was definitely worth the wait! Although rather pricey (despite what some online reviews might state), the landmark restaurant serves up some FABULOUS food. And thanks to its huge deli counter, brown leather booths, and pastrami sandwiches stacked as high as the eye can see, eating there was like visiting a little slice of New York City right here in Southern California.

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Nate ‘n Al’s has been a veritable institution in Beverly Hills ever since it first opened way back on May 24, 1945. The deli was founded by Al Mendelson and Nate Reimer, who originally met while working at Boesky’s Deli in Chicago. The two entrepreneurs eventually decided to open their very own deli-style restaurant a few years later and figured LaLaLand was just the place to do so. At the time of its founding, the restaurant was Beverly Hills’ sole delicatessen and could only accommodate a scant 30 patrons. It became such an immediate success, though, that it was later expanded to its current, larger size which can hold up to 120 diners. Nate retired just a few years after the restaurant’s opening, but Al stayed on to helm the place and it is his ancestors who are still running it today. And I am happy to report that the restaurant is still going strong. According to this 2005 Daily News article, each year Nate ‘n Al’s serves up 130,000 matzo balls, 16,000 gallons of chicken noodle soup, and 80,000 pounds of corned beef! As I stated above, the food is phenomenal, but it’s also fairly expensive, so be prepared.

Because of its fabulous food and laid-back attitude, Nate ‘n Al’s has long been a celebrity magnet. You won’t find any autographed pictures decorating the establishment’s walls, though, because as founder Al Mendelson advised: “If you want them in the booths, keep them off the walls.” 😉 Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there over the years include Max Mutchnick (one of the co-creators of Will & Grace), Lew Wasserman, Suzanne Pleshette, Tom Poston, Robert Wagner, Neil Diamond, Jon Voight, Doris Day, Nicollette Sheridan, Jay Leno, Roseanne Bar, Adam Sandler, Dick Van Dyke, Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, Jodie Foster, Nancy Sinatra, Courteney Cox, Rodney Dangerfield, Kareem Abdul Jabar, Tony Curtis, Sharon Osbourne, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Television host Larry King loves the place so much that he not only dines there every single morning (not kidding!), but he also purchased his house in Beverly Hills for the sole reason that it was within walking distance of the deli! Love it!

And while we didn’t spot any celebs while dining there, fellow stalker Karen was lucky enough to be seated next to Jason Reitman on a recent visit to the deli. Her daughter snapped the above photo of the Juno director on the down-low during their meal. Love it! Jason wasn’t the only celeb that Karen and her daughter spotted at Nate ‘n Al’s that day, though – Larry King and Clint Howard were also dining at the time. Lucky girls! As Karen said, talk about “hitting a trifecta”! From what I’ve heard, the best time to spot celebs at Nate ‘n Al’s is in the morning, which means I’ve gotta go back there sometime soon to grab some breakfast!

And the place is also a filming location! In the Season 5 episode of Entourage titled “The All Out Fall Out”, Nate ‘n Al’s is the spot where Vinnie Chase (aka Adrian Grenier) finds out from his business manager that he may need to file for bankruptcy. The 1957 flick Pal Joey, which starred Frank Sinatra and Rita Hayworth, was also filmed at the historic restaurant.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Nate ‘n Al Delicatessen, from Entourage, is located at 414 North Beverly Boulevard in Beverly Hills. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

August 18, 2010
Holly’s Nashua House from “The Office”

Another location from The Office that I stalked recently was the supposed Nashua, New Hampshire-area house that Holly Flax moved into in the Season 5 episode titled “Employee Transfer”. I found this location, yet again, thanks to fellow stalker Owen who went on a mission a while back to try to track down as many Office locales as possible. So, thank you, Owen! Ironically enough, though, I actually didn’t need his help on this one because as soon as I first saw the “Employee Transfer” episode, I was fairly certain that the Nashua house scenes had been filmed either on or near Carroll Avenue in the Angelino Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles – an area which boasts the city’s largest concentration of Victorian-era homes. I was already quite familiar with Carroll Avenue and its architecture as the haunted house from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video and the Halliwell residence from the television series Charmed are both located there. And, sure enough, my stalking instincts were right on! While Holly’s house is not actually located on Carroll Avenue, it can be found just around the corner from it.

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In the “Employee Transfer” episode, Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell) and Darryl Philbin (aka the hilarious Craig Robinson) move Michael’s girlfriend Holly Flax (aka Amy Ryan) into her new home in Nashua, after she has been transferred back to the Dunder Mifflin branch where she formerly worked.

And I am very happy to report that the residence looks EXACTLY the same in person as it did on the show. Holly’s house is absolutely GORGEOUS and it is not very hard to see why producers chose to film there, although, in my mind at least, it looks far more like a San Francisco-area home than one that would be found in Nashua. I’ve never been to New Hampshire, though, so don’t quote me on that one. 😉

Holly’s Nashua house, which is known as the Jesse Hall Residence in real life, actually has quite a bit of history to it, as do most properties in the neighborhood. The Hall Residence was designed by contractor John M. Skinner in 1887 for $6,000 and it is a carbon copy of the property located directly to the east of it, which is known as the Henry G. Hall Residence. Because the homes are identical in appearance and were both owned by families with the last name of Hall, they are known in architectural circles as “the Hall Twins”. And while the house was originally a single-family dwelling, in 1915 Jesse Hall’s son, Tracey, transformed the property into a duplex and it remains so to this day. The Hall Twins were both designated Historic-Cultural Monuments in June of 1979. You can read more about their history on the Big Orange Landmarks blog here.

On an Office side note – EW Magazine is reporting that Amy Ryan will be back for a whopping eight episodes during the show’s upcoming seventh season. YAY! You can watch a clip of Amy appearing on fave show Chelsea Lately in which she talks about how she landed her recurring role as Michael Scott’s love interest Holly Flax. Apparently, after she was nominated for an Oscar for the movie Gone, Baby, Gone, she told her agent that she wanted to use her newfound Hollywood clout to land a guest spot on The Office, which was her favorite show. She ended up landing the part of Holly and when she arrived on the set the first day and told Rainn Wilson the story of how she booked the role, he told her “You really should aim higher.” LOL I first watched that interview long before I had ever seen an episode of The Office and remember being absolutely fascinated by the fact that Amy loved the show THAT much. But now that I’ve become an Office devotee, I TOTALLY get it. If I was nominated for an Oscar, I, too, would so try to use my clout to land a role on that show. 🙂

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Holly Flax’s Nashua house from The Office is located at 1347 Kellam Avenue in the Angelino Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. The house from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video is located just around the corner at 1345 Carroll Avenue and the Charmed residence is located at 1329 Carroll Avenue.

August 17, 2010
The Bistro Garden

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

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

August 12, 2010
Jim and Pam’s Wedding Church from “The Office”

Another wedding-themed location that I stalked recently was the San Fernando Valley-area church where Jim Halpert (aka John Krasinski) married Pam Beesly (aka Jenna Fischer) in the Season Six episode of my new favorite show The Office titled “Niagara”. I found out about this location quite a while ago, thanks to both fellow stalker Owen, who had told me about it in an email, and fellow stalker Snidely Whiplash, who posted a comment about it on my site. And literally, as soon as I finished watching the “Niagara” episode a few weeks back, I dragged my fiancé right out to stalk the place. Unfortunately, I must have been having a blonde moment at the time, though, because we stalked the church on a Saturday evening when it was, sadly, locked up and closed. SUCH A BUMMER! The experience taught me a very valuable lesson, though – if you are going to stalk a church, do so on a Sunday morning when it is almost guaranteed that the property will be open to the public. 😉

In real life, the supposed Niagara Falls, New York-area church where Pam and Jim tied the knot, which was referred to as Spruce Avenue Presbyterian Church in the episode, is known as the Congregational Church of the Chimes and it can actually be found right here in Southern California, in the San Fernando Valley suburb of Sherman Oaks. Jim and Pam’s wedding did not take place in the church’s main building, though, but in the smaller Walter H. Staves Chapel, which is pictured above.

And while I didn’t get to see the inside of the chapel, my fiancé and I were able to wander around the church grounds quite a bit and, thanks to some very friendly parishioners who pointed me in the right direction, I got to stalk the fountain where Jim and Pam posed for the photograph that appeared on their official wedding website. YAY!

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We also got to stalk the patch of grass where Jim kicked around a soccer ball before the wedding, so the day wasn’t a total loss. 🙂

My good friends, fellow stalkers Lavonna and Melissa, who were Office aficionados long before I was, stalked the church when they were in town this past April and had much better luck than I did. As fate would have it, they happened to pull up to the property just as the church’s wedding coordinator, a super nice woman named Lila, was locking the chapel up. They told her that they were major Office fans and asked if she might let them take a quick peek at the interior and she happily obliged! Thankfully, Lavonna and Melissa were kind enough to loan me the photographs they took that day to use in this post. Thank you, ladies!

Not only did the two of them get to stalk the inside of the chapel, though, but Melissa also got to re-create the “Forever” dance routine that the Office staff performed during the ceremony! Sigh! I had SO wanted to do that very same thing while I was there! Ah well, looks like I’ll just have to re-stalk this place again sometime soon . . . on a Sunday, of course. “:)

You can watch Jim and Pam’s wedding scene from the “Niagara” episode by clicking above. And I am not ashamed to admit that I absolutely CANNOT watch that scene without crying – even though I’ve probably seen it a dozen times by now! It literally gets me EVERY SINGLE TIME! Especially when Jim says, “And Plan A was marrying her a long, long time ago. Pretty much the day I met her.” Sigh!

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalkers Owen and Snidely Whiplash for finding this location and to Lavonna and Melissa for allowing me to post their photos of it on my blog! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Congregational Church of the Chimes, aka Jim and Pam’s wedding church from The Office, is located at 14115 Magnolia Boulevard in Sherman Oaks. You can visit the church’s official website here. Jim and Pam got married in the Walter H. Staves Chapel, which is located on the southwest portion of the church grounds and is denoted with the blue arrow on the above map. The fountain where the couple posed for their wedding photograph is located inside of the Katharine Gibson Chapel of the Garden and is denoted with a gold star on the above map. The patch of grass where Jim played soccer before the ceremony is located in the center of the property and is denoted with a pink “X” on the above map.

August 4, 2010
The “Party of Five” House

Sunday night I returned home from my bachelorette party weekend, which turned out to be a surprise Sex and the City-themed soiree thrown up north in San Francisco. Needless to say, I was absolutely FLOORED about it. 🙂 The celebration was, of course, held at a filming location, so I will, of course, be blogging about it, but I am still waiting on some pictures that my friends took before I can do so. In the meantime, though, I thought I’d blog about a location that I have been wanting to stalk for what seems like forever now – the San Francisco home where the Salinger Family – Bailey (aka Scott Wolf), Charlie (aka Matthew Fox), Julia (aka Neve Campbell), Claudia (aka Lacey Chabert), and Owen (aka toddler twins Brandon and Taylor Porter) – lived on the 90’s television series Party of Five. For whatever reason, even though I’ve had the place on my To-Stalk list for ages now, every time I’ve visited San Francisco over the past two years, I haven’t been able to make it out to the house. So, I begged my good friend Nat to take me there the morning following my party and, let me tell you, I could NOT have been more excited to finally be seeing it in person.

Because I accidentally left my trusty stalking notebook at home, I didn’t have the address of the house with me this past weekend, so, before heading out there, Nat and I did a little cyberstalking to find the address online and as it turns out the property has its own listing on Yelp! Love it, love it, love it!

I am VERY, VERY happy to report that the Salinger house looks EXACTLY the same today as it did back in 1994 when Party of Five was filmed. Even the paint colors have remained the same! YAY! The home is absolutely GORGEOUS in person and so quintessentially symbolizes San Francisco that it is not at all hard to see why producers chose to use it as the main residence on the Bay Area-based series.

In real life, the three-story dwelling, which was built in 1900, features seven bedrooms, five and a half bathrooms, a whopping 6,705 square feet, cathedral ceilings, a four-car garage, an elevator, a gourmet kitchen, a greenhouse solarium, stained glass windows throughout, two decks, and views of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Palace of Fine Arts, and San Francisco Bay. The property was sold to new owners earlier this year for $6,550,000. I can’t even imagine owning an iconic piece of television history like that! So darn cool!

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The house was featured each week in the Party of Five opening credits and in establishing shots throughout the series’ six-year run.

Because parts of the Party of Five pilot were shot on location in San Francisco, I assumed that the real life interior of the house was also used in the filming of that episode. But if you look at this recent real estate listing for the home and compare it to the above screen captures, you can see that that was not actually the case. But I am happy to report that the real life house does boast a small garden courtyard, much like its onscreen counterpart.

You can watch the Party of Five opening credits, which feature the house, by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to Nat for taking me to stalk this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Party of Five house is located at 2311 Broadway in the ultra-exclusive Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco.

August 3, 2010
Jim and Pam’s Wedding Hotel from “The Office”

Now that I have watched all six seasons of The Office, I can honestly say that my favorite episode hands down has to be the Season 6 episode titled “Niagara” in which Jim Halpert (aka John Krasinski) and Pam Beasley (aka Jenna Fischer) finally get married. I loved the episode for two very different reasons – one, because Jim and Pam’s relationship is so incredibly sweet, and two, because it so perfectly captures what it is like to plan a wedding. Whoever wrote “Niagara” must have gone through the ordeal that is planning a wedding just prior to penning it, because, let me tell you, they got things absolutely, one hundred percent SPOT ON! And right now I can TOTALLY relate. Yes, planning a wedding is fun and exciting and heartwarming, but, at the same time, dealing with people is just not my forte. I honestly want to call up some of our guests and/or vendors and scream, “NO, I will not provide you with shade during the ceremony, NO, I will not pick you up from the airport on the morning of my wedding, and NO, it’s not OK that you RSVP-ed yes, but are now backing out even though I have already given my caterer the final head count!” – all of which were recently said to or asked of me and my fiancé! Sigh! The scene in which Pam says to Jim, “Everyone’s driving me crazy. This is supposed to be our wedding day! Why did we invite all these people?” especially resonated with me when I watched the episode and I can’t tell you the number of times since then that I’ve seriously considered jumping on a ship to tie the knot sans guests just like Pam and Jim eventually did. 😉 Anyway, while watching “Niagara”, I immediately recognized the hotel where Jim and Pam’s guests stayed during their wedding as the historic Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City. So, I dragged my fiancé right out to stalk it when we were in the area two weekends ago.

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The Sportmen’s Lodge Hotel has been around since the early 1880s, but at the time it was named Hollywood Trout Farms thanks to the fact that it was surrounded by a series of man-made lakes and piers from which guests could fish for trout which would then subsequently be cooked and served to them for dinner by the staff at the main restaurant. In 1962, a new, larger hotel was built on the property, which had since been re-named the Sportsmen’s Lodge. It is that structure that still stands today.

And while the trout lakes have long since been removed, the hotel now boasts an Olympic-sized swimming pool, numerous ponds and waterfalls, and eight picturesque acres of land. Due to its proximity to the Hollywood studios, the Lodge has long been popular with movie stars, including Clark Gable, Marlon Brando, Doris Day, David Lee Roth, Billy Bob Thornton, Trisha Yearwood, Spencer Tracy, Lauren Bacall, Tallulah Bankhead, Lena Horne, Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, Katharine Hepburn, and Bette Davis, all of whom have been spotted there at one time or another. In 2007, the hotel was purchased by real estate developer Richard Weintraub who set about extensively renovating the property. And, unfortunately, along with that renovation came quite a bit of change. 🙁

In The Office’s aptly named “Niagara” episode, Pam and Jim head to Niagara Falls to tie the knot. And while the interior scenes were filmed at the Sportsmen’s Lodge, as I mentioned above, the exterior shots were filmed at an actual Niagara Falls lodging named the Red Coach Inn. And, as you can see in the above screen capture and photograph, the two hotels look nothing alike.

The Sportsmen’s Lodge Hotel actually has two lobbies, and it is the back lobby, which is located off of Coldwater Canyon Avenue, that was used in the episode. Unfortunately, as you can see in the above screen captures and photographs, that lobby looks MUCH different today than it did when The Office was filmed. During the recent remodel, all of the back lobby’s wood was covered over with white paint, making the space appear much less lodge-like.

Gone, too, is the hotel’s former stone-covered fireplace, which has been revamped to look like an ordinary, everyday fireplace. Such a shame! The hotel, which used to have a very kitschy feel to it, now appears traditional and run-of-the-mill. I am actually quite surprised that Weintraub had the place remodeled in such a way, as I am sure that it is no longer quite as appealing to producers and location managers.

And I have to say here that I absolutely LOVE the scene in which Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell) shows up to the hotel’s front desk and informs the clerk that he doesn’t have a reservation because Jim and Pam have “blocked” rooms for their guests. LOL LOL LOL Man, I can SO see that happening in real life! I don’t know what it is about a wedding that renders seemingly normal, intelligent people into helpless, self-absorbed morons, but, let me tell you, it happens!

Several of the Lodge’s hotel rooms were also featured in the “Niagara” episode, including Room 642, where Pam’s grandmother, Meemaw, stayed;

Room 644, where Pam stayed;

Room 641, where Dwight stayed;

and Suite 639, aka the “Honeymoon Suite”, where Andy stayed.

All of the rooms featured in the episode can be found in the same hallway, which is located on the hotel’s second floor, directly above the main lobby.

I could NOT for the life of me find the ice/vending machine closet where Michael spent the night in “Niagara”, though. Oddly enough, according to the housekeeper that I spoke with, the hotel only has one ice machine area and it is located next to the pool. I checked it out, though, and it looks nothing like the room pictured above, which leads me to believe that producers either created a fake room in one of the hotel’s storage closets for the filming or that the ice machine room where filming took place was removed during the recent remodel.

The very same back lobby which appeared in The Office was also the site of the graduation dance in the Britney Spears’ movie Crossroads. I obtained this information from a crew member while I was working as an extra in the movie and I actually thought it was a bit odd being that a vast majority of the flick was lensed at the now-defunct Ambassador Hotel. It seems like it would have been a whole lot easier to just shoot the dance sequence in one of the former hotel’s many ballrooms since the cast and crew were already filming on location there, but, then again, what do I know? 😉

And, of course, I just HAD to pose on the Sportmen’s Lodge’s stairwell since Britney had once been there. 🙂

The actual dance scene in Crossroads was filmed in the Lodge’s Starlight ballroom. And, as you can see in the above screen captures and photograph, the room’s light fixtures and the banister surrounding the dance floor still look the same today as they did in 2002 when Crossroads was filmed. YAY!

The hotel was also where Lynette Scavo (aka Felicity Huffman) stayed after leaving her husband Tom (aka Doug Savant) in the Season 2 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Remember (1)”.

And if you look at the room where Lynette stayed in that episode, you will notice that it is a perfect match to the room Lucy Wagner (aka Britney Spears) and Henry (aka Justin Long) rented after the dance in Crossroads, which is extremely odd as I would have guessed – once again – that that scene would have been filmed at the above-mentioned Ambassador, as was the case with all of the other hotel room scenes in the movie. So odd!

The front entrance of the hotel also appeared in Crossroads.

The wedding from the end of I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry was filmed at the Lodge, in the hotel’s lagoon area, and, according to a staff member I spoke with, the movies Leverage, Made, and Day the World Ended, and episodes of the television series Reno 911, Columbo, and Falcon Crest were also all filmed at the Sportsmen’s Lodge,

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Sportmen’s Lodge, aka Jim and Pam’s wedding hotel from The Office, is located at 12825 Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. You can visit the hotel’s official website here. In the “Niagara” episode, Pam stayed in Room 644, Dwight in Room 641, Pam’s Meemaw in Room 642, and Andy in Suite 639. All of the rooms that were featured in the episode are located in the same second floor hallway of the hotel, directly above the main lobby. The back lobby, which appeared in the both The Office and Crossroads, can be reached via Coldwater Canyon Avenue.

August 2, 2010
David Wallace’s House from “The Office” – Part II

Another filming location from The Office that I dragged my fiance out to stalk two weekends ago was the large Colonial-style estate belonging to Dunder Mifflin Paper Company CFO David Wallace (aka Andy Buckley) on the show. This is not the same Pasadena-area property that stood in for the Wallace residence in the Season 3 episode of the series titled “Branch Closing” that I blogged about two weeks ago, however. For an unexplained reason, after shooting the “Branch Closing” episode, producers chose to use a different, but similar-looking home located in the Encino-area, to stand in for the Wallace residence. I found this location, as usual, thanks to fellow stalker Owen, who tracked down a slew of Office filming locales long before I ever even watched the show. So, thank you, Owen!

Owen had warned me before I stalked the house that the property was not only gated, but set quite a ways back from the street and was most likely not at all visible to the public. I am very happy to report, though, that the stalking gods were smiling down upon us when we arrived to stalk the house because miraculously the front gates were standing WIDE OPEN! YAY! I am also happy to report that the home looks exactly the same in person as it did on the show.

I honestly can’t get over how large the Wallace residence is! The place is absolutely gargantuan! And it is currently for sale! According to its real estate listing, the home, which is currently being offered at $4,998,000, boasts 6 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms, 6,000 square feet of living space, and sits on a whopping 3 acres of what the listing describes as “park-like” land. The home also features a separate 700-square foot guest house, working horse stables, a tennis court, a pool, and a spa.

The home first appeared in the Season 3 episode of the series titled “Cocktails”, in which David Wallace and his wife, Rachel, throw a party at their house for all of the Dunder Mifflin managers.

And, as you can see in the above screen captures as compared to these interior photographs of the home, the real life inside of the house and even some of the actual furniture was used in the filming of that episode.

I have to say here that I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE the scene in “Cocktails” in which Dwight Schrute (aka Rainn Wilson) turns to a party guest who is eating shrimp and says, “You know that line on the top of the shrimp? That’s feces.” LOL LOL LOL That scene especially resonates with me because someone once told me that very same thing when I was a little girl and I have NEVER forgotten it and now can’t eat shrimp unless that “line” has been removed.

One VERY odd anomaly that I noticed while watching the “Cocktails” episode today was that the trash cans pictured in the background of the scene in which Michael and Dwight trade shirts were all spray-painted with the number “1485”. And while the home where that episode was filmed is numbered “5133”, the Pasadena residence that stood in for David Wallace’s house in the previous “Branch Closing” episode was in fact numbered “1485”. I don’t even know what to make of this development, as that shirt-trading scene was obviously not filmed at the Pasadena location. I guess I’ll just have to chalk it up to being a very, very bizarre coincidence.

David Wallace’s house also appeared in the Season 6 episode of The Office titled “Sabre” in the scene in which Michael goes to David’s home to get some advice on how to deal with the new corporation that has just taken over Dunder Mifflin.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: David Wallace’s (second) house from The Office is located at 5133 Louise Avenue in Encino. You can visit the home’s real estate listing here.

July 29, 2010