Chez Jacques from “Mannequin”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

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