The Burger That Ate L.A. from “Melrose Place”

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Way back in July 2009, a fellow stalker named Zoe emailed me to ask for some help in tracking down a hamburger-shaped restaurant that had appeared regularly in establishing shots on the original Melrose Place. Because I had never really watched the series, though, and had never noticed a burger-shaped eatery in all my years of living in L.A., I was not able to offer much help.  So imagine my surprise when, while stalking in the West Hollywood area with Mike, from MovieShotsLA, a couple of months ago, we drove by the Starbucks pictured above and he announced that in the late ‘90s it was a famous hamburger-shaped restaurant named The Burger That Ate L.A. and that it was featured in an early episode of MP.  I just about passed out from excitement over the news!  More exciting still was the fact that, as Mike pointed out, even though the eatery has since gone through a series of different incarnations, the shape and structure of it is still almost exactly the same as it was when it was a burger place.  Yay!  Because we were rushing off to stalk Frank’s Wedding Coordinator shop from Father of the Bride (which I blogged about here) though, we did not pull over to take pictures.  (I know, I know – me passing up the chance to stalk a Starbucks is seriously blasphemous!)  But I immediately added the address to my To-Stalk list and finally dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there a couple of weeks ago.

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In the pilot episode of Melrose Place, Kelly Taylor (Jennie Garth) drops Donna Martin (Tori Spelling) and David Silver (Brian Austin Green) – all of whom were making a guest appearance – off in front of The Burger That Ate L.A. before heading over to see her new boyfriend, Jake Hanson (Grant Show), who “lives around the corner” at the Melrose Place apartment building (which I blogged about many, many moons ago here).  As you can see below, The Burger That Ate L.A. was quite an extraordinary place.

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The eatery also popped up in the opening credits of Melrose Place’s pilot episode and, as I mentioned above, in the series’ regular establishing shots of the Melrose District neighborhood, where the characters supposedly lived.

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The Burger That Ate L.A. was also featured very briefly in the Season 1 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “The First Time”, in the scene in which Brandon Walsh (Jason Priestley) takes his former girlfriend, Sheryl (Paula Irvine), who is visiting from Minnesota, sightseeing.

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The unique programmatic design of The Burger That Ate L.A. was the brainchild of restaurateur David Alderman, who also founded Carlos & Pepe’s in Fort Lauderdale and Moonshadows in Malibu (where Mel Gibson partied before his infamous DUI arrest in 2006).  Alderman became inspired to shape his latest venture like a hamburger late one night while watching a B-movie.  According to this July 7th, 1989 Los Angeles Times article, of the idea, he said, “Something in the old movie must have flipped a switch, and a light bulb popped in my head.  I grew up in West Los Angeles, and often passed the Tail o’ the Pup hot-dog stand, which is shaped like a sausage sticking out between two buns.”  Alderman commissioned the Solberg + Associates (which was then known as Solberg + Lowe Architects) firm to design and carry out his vision and The Burger That Ate L.A. was opened in mid-1989.  The kitschy diner featured bar stools that were shaped like pickle wedges and a huge tomato slice that was suspended from the ceiling.  What I wouldn’t give to have been able to see it in person!  Sad smile

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The Burger That Ate L.A. was insanely popular for a time and even attracted its fair share of celebs.  Apparently, Drew Barrymore once dined there, as did Axl Rose.  Sadly though, the popularity did not last.  While I do not know the exact date of its closure, by October 1994, The Burger had already been shut down, re-opened as the Acapulco Chicken Café (which inexplicably retained the burger shape of the building, as you can see here), closed yet again and left to deteriorate.  At some point, the façade of Los Angeles City Hall was removed, but when Starbucks leased the property in 1995 or 1996, they added it back on, which I think is so incredibly cool!  As you can see below, the basic shape of the place is still exactly the same as it was back in The Burger That Ate L.A. days.  The rounded “burger” area is still there, as are the winged backdrop and the curved windows.  And, as you can see in this 2000 photograph of the building on the Starbucks Everywhere website, the place even retained its brick siding for a time.

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I cannot tell you how exciting it is to discover that, despite years of change (or in this case decades!), some remnant of a historic location still exists, no matter how small.  And I love, love, love that Starbucks not only chose to incorporate the basic shape of The Burger That Ate L.A. into its design, but also restored the City Hall façade back onto its roof.  While most Starbucks stores look like cookie cutter versions of themselves, this one not only stands out, but also preserves a bit of Los Angeles’ history in the process.  That’s Starbucks for you – making the world better, one latte at a time.  Winking smile

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Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here.  You can also check out the IAMNOTASTALKER About Me page here and you can follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.  And you can take a look my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location!

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Burger That Ate L.A., from the pilot episode of Melrose Place, was formerly located at 7624 Melrose Avenue in the Melrose District of Los Angeles.  The space now houses a Starbucks.

The “Mommie Dearest” House

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Before I get started, I would like to wish all of my fellow stalkers a VERY happy Halloween!  And while I will, of course, be posting pics of me and the Grim Cheaper in costume, because I always write my blogs at least one day ahead of time, I will not be able to do so until later this week.  It is for that reason that I will be extending my Haunted Hollywood postings through Wednesday, which is a good thing as I am having an absolute blast writing them!  But for now, on with today’s post!  Another older movie that I watched in preparation for my Haunted Hollywood theme was 1981’s Mommie Dearest, the alleged true story of the abuse of Christina Crawford at the hands of her mother, screen legend Joan Crawford.  While watching the flick, I immediately recognized the house where Joan and Christina lived, as not only had it appeared in the pilot episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, but several tour books had also long ago incorrectly identified it as the Fresh Prince of Bel Air mansion.  I had stalked and blogged about the Bel-Air-area property way back in April of 2008, but it was not until later that same year that I discovered that the actual Fresh Prince house was located in Brentwood (at 251 North Bristol Avenue – just a block and a half away from Christina Crawford’s actual childhood home, ironically enough).  Anyway, because my 2008 write-up on the house was incredibly brief, I decided that it was most definitely worthy of a re-post.  So here goes!

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In Mommie Dearest, the huge Colonial-style house pictured above is where Joan Crawford (aka Faye Dunaway) teaches her adopted daughter Christina (aka a phenomenal Mara Hobel) the perils of using wire hangers.  And while the movie and Faye’s performance have largely been described as “camp”, I did not find them to be so at all.  I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and all of the performances and became so fascinated by the story that I ran right out to my local library to check out the book on which it was based.

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In real life, the Mommie Dearest house, which was originally built in 1942, boasts 5 bedrooms, 6 baths, 6,077 square feet, and a 1.5-acre corner plot of land.  And, amazingly enough, as you can see above, it still looks almost exactly the same today as it did in 1981 when the movie was filmed!  Only the front of the property appeared onscreen, though.

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For all of the backyard scenes, producers chose to film at a different colonial-style mansion located in Beverly Hills.  Remarkably, the backyard where filming took place looks almost identical to Joan Crawford’s real life backyard, which you can see a photograph of here.

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I found the backyard location thanks to an old real estate listing which mentioned the property’s appearance in Mommie Dearest, so I, of course, just had to run right out to stalk it, as well!

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And, as you can see in the above photographs from the listing, the backyard still looks EXACTLY the same today as it did onscreen in Mommie Dearest Even the backyard furniture is still the same!  LOVE IT!  LOVE IT!  LOVE IT!

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I am fairly certain that the interior scenes were all filmed on a soundstage and not at either of the actual homes.

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As I mentioned above, the Mommie Dearest house was also used in the pilot episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 as the home of Marianne Moore (aka Leslie Bega), where the Walsh twins, Brandon (aka Jason Priestley) and Brenda (aka my girl Shannen Doherty), attended their very first Beverly Hills party.

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The home’s hot tub area also appeared later on in the episode in the scene in which Marianne invited Brandon over for a date.

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You can see that hot tub in the above aerial view.

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And, oddly enough, a very brief establishing shot of the residence was used in another episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 – the Season 7 episode titled “All That Jazz”, in which it was used as the New Orleans hotel where David Silver (aka Brian Austin Green) took Donna Martin (aka Tori Spelling) for the night.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Mommie Dearest house is located at 417 Amapola Lane in Bel Air.  The home used for all of the movie’s backyard scenes is located at 355 South Mapleton Drive in Beverly Hills.