The Cliffhouse Restaurant from “City of Industry”

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For our first wedding anniversary this past weekend, the Grim Cheaper and I headed out to the desert to spend a few days at the La Quinta Resort & Club, a historic hotel and popular celebrity hangout which I blogged about extensively last December.  The GC’s brother, who works for the Hilton Hotels chain, which owns the resort, hooked us up royally with a Friends-and-Family discount so we were able to book a suite at an amazingly low rate – a suite that turned out to be the property’s Errol Flynn room!  When I first walked through the doors and saw Errol’s star hanging on the wall, I just about had a heart attack!  (As I mentioned in my December post, in each room where a celebrity has once stayed, the hotel posts a replica of that celebrity’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star.) A super-nice concierge that we later spoke with also informed us that comedian Red Skelton had once vacationed in our suite.   But for some reason, even though Red Skelton was actually honored with two Walk of Fame stars during his lifetime – one for radio and one for TV – only a replica of Errol’s star was posted in our room.

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We absolutely fell in love with our little Spanish-style suite, which featured two bathrooms and two patios and was situated in an adorable trellised courtyard.  So much so that we ended up extending our stay at the last minute by one more night, as neither of us could bear to leave.

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Just to explain the kind of place La Quinta Resort is, we were not only sent a split of champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries on the night of our anniversary . . .

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. . . but after deciding to extend our stay, we were sent more champagne, more strawberries, and a bottle of wine!  All while we were paying a room rate that was almost obscenely low.  Needless to say, the La Quinta Resort & Club is all about customer service.  I absolutely LOVE the place and cannot more highly recommend staying there!  You can read more about Hollywood’s extensive love affair with the hotel in the post I wrote back in December.  And now, on with today’s location!

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Long before they moved to the desert, my parents discovered a La Quinta-area eatery named the Cliffhouse and it quickly became their favorite local spot to grab a bite to eat.  And while I have dined there quite a few times over the years, it was not until just a couple of weeks ago that, thanks to favorite stalking tome Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors, I discovered the restaurant was a filming location!  As it turns out, the ranch-style eatery was featured briefly in the 1997 heist movie City of Industry!  So when my parents mentioned that they wanted to treat me and the GC to dinner there in honor of our anniversary, I could NOT have been more excited!

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As you can see in the above aerial view, the Cliffhouse is literally built directly into the side of a small cliff that is known locally as “Point Happy”.  The area was named for rancher Norman “Happy” Lundbeck who, in the early 1900s, owned a store and ranch directly across the highway from the small hillside.  Over time, Norman’s homestead, which he dubbed “Point Happy Ranch”, became a popular hitching post and watering hole for weary gold-seekers traveling from California to the Colorado River.  And the small, but prominent hillside eventually became a landmark to those travelers, letting them know that much-needed food and rest was near.  The Cliffhouse restaurant, which cost $5 million to construct, took over 5 years of planning to complete, and involved a hollowing out of a part of the Point, opened in 1992 and has been a desert staple ever since.  The eatery is not only beautiful and incredibly unique in its architecture, but it also serves up some FABULOUS food, especially the fish tacos, which are INCREDIBLE – and I don’t even like fish!  The two-story, 9,000-square foot steakhouse is owned by TS Restaurants and, sadly, the corporation will not be renewing its lease come 2012, which is such an incredible shame I cannot even tell you.  There is hope that a new company will come in and take over the property, keeping the Cliffhouse name and menu, so my fingers are crossed.  I will be extremely sad if this place closes, as will my parents!

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In City of Industry, after being double-crossed and shot at by his partner Skip Kovich (aka Stephen Dorff), bank robber Roy Egan (aka Harvey Keitel) climbs up the retaining wall located on the western side of the Cliffhouse and then proceeds to steal a car from the restaurant’s parking lot.  Immediately after dining at the Cliffhouse, the GC and I ventured over to my parents’ house to watch City of Industry and I have to say that the movie was pretty darn horrible!  We ended up fast-forwarding through the vast majority of it, pausing just long enough to check out the numerous Palm-Springs-area locales which popped up.

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Only the parking lot area and the exterior of the restaurant were shown in the movie.  If you were at all a fan of City of Industry (I’m sure there have to be at least a few of you out there Winking smile), and would like to stalk the restaurant, I would recommend doing so before December 31st, when it is set to close.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Cliffhouse parking lot

Stalk It: The Cliffhouse restaurant, from City of Industry, is located at 78250 Highway 111 in La Quinta.  The area where Harvey Keitel climbed up the retaining wall in the movie is marked with a pink “X” in the above aerial view.  The area from which he stole the car is marked with a blue star.  You can visit the official Cliffhouse website here.  La Quinta Resort & Club is located at 49-499 Eisenhower Drive, also in La Quinta.  You can visit the hotel’s official website here.  The Errol Flynn suite is Room 222.

SpeedZone from “Guess Who”

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This past New Year’s, my fiancé’s entire family – including his two school-age nephews – came to town to watch the Rose Parade.  Before their arrival, he scoured the internet to find some fun places in the L.A. area to take the kids after the festivities were over.  One of the ideas he came up with was to spend a few hours at SpeedZone in the City of Industry – an amusement park of sorts which features an array of kid-friendly fun such as go-kart racing, miniature golf, and a large arcade.  I have to admit that I wasn’t actually too keen on the idea at first . . . until my fiancé told me that the place was an oft-used filming location, that is.  And then I was 100 percent on board with the venue and even tried to convince everyone that we should skip the whole parade and just head straight there instead!  🙂

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SpeedZone is best known for its four go kart courses, for which it recently won the LA Magazine “Best of Los Angeles 2009” – Best Go Kart Track award.  Those four tracks include the Top Eliminator Dragster, where racers drive authentic 300 horsepower NHRA dragsters on a mini-track reaching speeds of 70 miles per hour in less than 3.5 seconds;

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the Slick Trax – an ultra-slick polished surface course which encourages spinning and can accommodate up to 15 different drivers at the same time;

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the Grand Prix – a long, single licensed-driver course based on Formula 1 and Indy Car tracks which features tight turns and a speed timer; and the Turbo Track (which I unfortunately did not get a picture of) – a course which can accommodate up to twenty drivers at a time racing in high-torque one- and two-seater cars.     Not into go karts?  Well, that’s OK, too, because SpeedZone also features an arcade which boasts over 100 games including numerous video games, air hockey tables, and, my personal favorite, skee ball machines.  There are also two 18-hole golf-courses on the premises and a cafe which serves up pizza, sandwiches, burgers, and cocktails.  Yes, you read that right, the SpeedZone Cafe has a full bar, because adults enjoy go kart racing, too, you know.  😉

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While hanging out at SpeedZone, I raced on both the Top Eliminator Dragster course and the Grand Prix course and the Grand Prix was by far my favorite.  I had an ABSOLUTE blast racing and actually thought I was burning up the course the whole way through . . .

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. . . until I got to the end and noticed my pitiful time!  Yes, the 75.249 time is mine.  As you can see, two of the other racers noted on the board pictured above completed the race in almost half the amount of time it took me!  LOL  What can I say, I am cursed with having the opposite of a lead foot.  But I had an absolute blast being there and cannot wait to go back . . . and hopefully improve my time!  🙂

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SpeedZone’s most memorable cinematic appearance was in the 2005 comedy Guess Who in the scene in which overprotective father Percy Jones (aka Bernie Mac) challenges his future son-in-law Simon Green (aka Ashton Kutcher) to a little drag race on the Grand Prix track.  The two get into a bit of a scuffle during the race and wind up veering off the track, through a large hedge, and straight into oncoming traffic.

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Contrary to what was shown in Guess Who, though, SpeedZone does not allow two people to race on the Grand Prix track at the same time.  And don’t go looking for the archway pictured above, which Bernie and Ashton drive under in the movie, either, because I could not find it anywhere, which leads me to believe that it was either a prop brought in for the filming or that it used to be a real feature of the track that was removed sometime after filming took place.

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SpeedZone also stood in for Zany Town, the Chuck E. Cheese style arcade featured in the ultra-depressing Season One episode of CSI: Miami entitled “Broken”.  The episode was actually filmed almost in its entirety on the SpeedZone premises.

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The park’s golf area was also used in “Broken”, as the “Sir Golf-A-Lot” miniature golf course, where H and the gang finally apprehended the bad guy at the end of the episode.

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SpeedZone has also been featured in the reality shows Blind Date, Amish in the City, Average Joe, Who Wants To Marry My Dad, and Dismissed, on the game show Jeopardy, and it is set to appear in an upcoming episode of the new Melrose Place.  While I was stalking SpeedZone, I just had to ask one of the employees which celebrities had visited the theme park over the years and I just about died when he told me that Jennifer Aniston had been there!  Love it!  I was even wearing my Team Aniston sweatshirt at the time.  🙂  Courteney Cox and David Arquette have also raced cars at the park.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: SpeedZone is located at 17871 Castleton Street in the City of Industry.  You can visit their website hereGuess Who was filmed on the Grand Prix track and CSI: Miami was filmed in the Electric Alley arcade and on the Speedway miniature golf course.