Franck’s Wedding Coordinator Shop from “Father of the Bride”

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When the Grim Cheaper and I first showed up to stalk Fig & Olive restaurant, from the 2012 “Matthew’s Day Off” Honda CR-V Super Bowl commercial which I blogged about last week, I became absolutely enchanted with Melrose Place, the tiny tree-lined street on which the eatery is located.  Even though I had been a fan of the series Melrose Place back in the 90s, before tracking down Fig & Olive earlier this year I had no idea that the charming and idyllic little street, which runs a scant three blocks and is made up of mostly high-end boutiques, even existed.  In a recent About.com Los Angeles article, author Shana Ting Lipton calls Melrose Place a “hidden gem” and she could not be more right!  Because its name so closely resembles that of the neighboring, and far more well-known, Melrose Avenue, I believe Melrose Place often gets lost in the shuffle, which explains why this stalker had never before heard of it.  Needless to say, I absolutely fell in love with the picturesque little thoroughfare on the spot, as did the GC.

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While we were there, I happened to notice that the sidewalks on Melrose Place were extremely wide with brick ornamentation and my mind immediately flashed upon the shop where wedding coordinator Franck Eggelhoffer (Martin Short) and his assistant, Howard Weinstein (BD Wong), worked in fave movie Father of the Bride – a location that I had long been trying to track down.  For some odd reason, I had remembered that the sidewalk in front of Franck’s shop was also quite wide and lined with brick (I know, I know – my mind retains the oddest of information), so I snapped a quick pic of the Melrose Place sidewalk so that I could compare the two when I returned home.  Well, lo and behold, when I popped in my DVD later that night, I was able to confirm that the sidewalks were one and the same.  Yay!

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From that point, all I had to do was pinpoint the exact storefront where Franck worked and, being that Melrose Place is only three blocks long, the venture was an easy one.  Then, last Thursday, after I had figured out the correct spot, I dragged Mike, from MovieShotsLA, right on back out there to do some stalking of it.

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Franck’s shop shows up only once in Father of the Bride, in the scene in which George Banks (Steve Martin) begrudgingly accompanies his wife, Nina (Diane Keaton), and daughter, Annie (Kimberly Williams-Paisley), to meet the hard-to-understand wedding coordinator for the first time.  One of my very favorite lines in the movie is actually uttered during that scene – when George laments over the high price of the wedding cake, he says, “My first car didn’t cost $1,200!”, to which Franck responds, “Well, welcome to the ‘90s, Mr. Banks!”  Love it!

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In the scene, George, Nina and Annie are shown walking east on Melrose Place in front of the building numbered 8420.

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And I, of course, just had to imitate them by posing for an action walking shot while I was there. Smile

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I believe that the green “Antiques” awning that was visible in the background behind the trio was once attached to the building pictured above, which is located at 8422/8424 Melrose Place.  Fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, came across an article about the vacant property which mentions that it did, in fact, once house an antique store.  And, as fate would have it, back in 2007 the very same building was also the site of a Hanes Comfortique Event hosted by none other than Owen’s main squeeze, Jennifer Love Hewitt.  Talk about synchronicity!

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The building that stood in for Franck’s shop, which was also an antique store at the time of the filming, is now home to the Zero + Maria Cornejo boutique.  According to the About.com Los Angeles article that I mentioned earlier, Melrose Place actually used to be known as “the antiquing street” thanks to the myriad of antique shops that were located there once upon a time.

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And while the full exterior of the property was not shown in Father of the Bride, the door that Annie, George and Nina walked through still looks exactly the same today as it did back in 1991 when the movie was filmed!  Love it!

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The real life interior of the store was also featured in Father of the Bride.  As you can see in these pictures, while that interior has since been remodeled, it is still set up in the same basic three-room configuration that it was during the filming.

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Even the ribbed pillars that were visible in the background of the scene are still there, as you can see in the main photograph featured in this RackedLA post.

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In the scene, George, Nina, Annie, and Franck sat on a couch in front of the store’s eastern-most window.

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That window is pictured above.

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It is thanks to that portion of the scene that I was able to pinpoint exactly where Franck’s shop was situated.  While looking for clues, I had noticed a few distinct architectural elements on the building located across the street, which was visible through Franck’s window.  From there I used Google Street View to search for those elements and, thankfully, it was not long before I found them.  As you can see in the screen shot and Street View image above, the arched window (denoted with a pink arrow), horizontal lip (denoted with a yellow arrow) and rectangular-shaped cutout (denoted with  a blue arrow) of the building located at 8417 Melrose Place all match up to what appeared onscreen.

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Sadly, as you can see above, those elements are now covered over with large awnings and are no longer visible.  Thank God for Street View!

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I had also spotted a center island and a “Keep Right” sign through the window in the scene and, looking at aerial views, saw that that same island was located just east of the Zero + Maria Cornejo boutique.  And while the island still exists to this day, the “Keep Right” sign has since been removed.

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The Zero + Maria Cornejo employee that we spoke with while there could NOT have been nicer and was not only floored to learn that he worked in such a cinematically significant location, but also allowed Mike and me to snap some pics through the same window that Annie, Nina, George, and Franck sat in front of.

On a Father of the Bride side note – I just learned that the character of Franck Eggelhoffer was inspired by real life wedding planner Kevin Lee, who appeared on this past season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills as the wedding coordinator hired by Lisa Vanderpump.  You can watch a video clip of the “real Franck” by clicking above.  And yes, Martin Short had the guy down to a T!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Zero + Maria Cornejo, aka Franck’s wedding planning shop from Father of the Bride, is located at 8408 Melrose Place in West HollywoodFig & Olive restaurant, from the 2012 “Matthew’s Day Off” Honda CR-V Super Bowl commercial, is located just down the street at 8490 Melrose Place in West Hollywood.  You can visit Fig & Olive’s official website here.

George’s Side Kicks Shoe Factory from “Father of the Bride”

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Another Father of the Bride location that fellow stalker Chas, from the ItsFilmedThere website, tracked down recently was the Side Kicks shoe factory owned by George Banks (aka Steve Martin) in the flick.  And while I had been absolutely dying to stalk the place for what seemed like ages, I just could not seem to figure out where on earth it was located.  Then last month Chas managed to get into contact with several of the movie’s crew members, one of whom not only remembered the exact address of the warehouse (432 South Arroyo Parkway in Pasadena), but also informed him that while the building was vacant at the time of the filming, it was now occupied by Snyder Diamond, a high-end kitchen and bath appliance retailer.  And while I was BEYOND excited when Chas told me the news, because a new company had taken over the space, I did not have high hopes that it would be very recognizable from the movie.

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So imagine my surprise when I walked through the doors and discovered that the building looked almost exactly the same as it did when Father of the Bride was filmed over two full decades ago!  I just about died of excitement and then proceeded to walk almost every square inch of the place, soaking in the many memories of the movie that came flooding back to me.

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As you can see in the above screen captures, the ceiling area, windows, interior pipes and brick walls all still look EXACTLY the same today as they did onscreen in 1991.  The only real difference is the fake kitchen and bath set-ups which have since been installed on the main floor.

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I was most excited to stalk the warehouse’s upstairs mezzanine, which was used as George’s office in Father of the Bride.

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Sadly though, that particular area has been completely gutted and all of the interior walls, doors, and windows removed and now looks entirely different than it did when the movie was filmed.

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A view of George’s office area from the ground floor of Snyder Diamond is pictured above.

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The circular staircase leading up to George’s office has also, sadly, since been removed.

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The exterior of the Snyder Diamond building, which was not shown in Father of the Bride, is quite beautiful.  The Tudor-style structure, which was originally constructed in 1922, is currently on the National Register of Historic Places.  As I mentioned above, the property was vacant at the time of the filming, which allowed producers to come in and dress it as they pleased.  Sometime after the movie was lensed, Thomasville Furniture moved in.  They vacated the property in 2005, whereupon it was leased by Snyder Diamond.  For whatever reason, when Father of the Bride Part II was filmed in 1995, location scouts found a different Pasadena area building to stand in for the Side Kicks factory.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Chas, from the ItsFilmedThere website, for finding this location.  You can check out Chas’ Father of the Bride filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Snyder Diamond, aka George’s Side Kicks shoe factory from Father of the Bride, is located at 432 South Arroyo Parkway in Pasadena.

The “Father of the Bride” Grocery Store

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Due to my parents’ recent move and my dad’s recent hospital stay, I have sadly not had time to do much stalking as of late.  While in Palm Springs this past weekend my mom happened to ask me if I had some locations stockpiled (or should I say “stalkpiled”? Winking smile) for times such as this.  Well, as I explained to her, I have so many darn locations on my “To Blog” list that half the time I forget about them, which was the case with the spot I am writing about today – the grocery store from the 1991 movie Father of the Bride.  I stalked the market way back in early May and had completely forgotten about it until yesterday morning when I was going through my Picasa web albums and spotted the pictures I took while there.  So, don’t worry mom!  The problem lies not in there being a lack of locations to write about, but in me being able to recall them all!  Anyway, a couple of months ago I asked fellow stalker Chas, of the ItsFilmedThere website, to track down several locations from fave movie Father of the Bride, one of which was the grocery store where George Banks (aka Steve Martin) refused to buy “superfluous” hot dog buns.  Fellow stalker Owen had actually tried to find this location last year and had somehow managed to get into contact with actor Britt Leach who played the role of the assistant grocery store manager in the scene.  Britt, who has to be one of the nicest guys in the world, not only wrote back to Owen immediately, but subsequently wrote to me as well and did his best in helping us to find the place.  He informed us that the store was located in the Burbank area, possibly near the IKEA on North San Fernando Boulevard.  So with that information in hand, Owen and I tried to track the place down, but, for whatever reason, came up completely empty-handed.

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Enter Chas, who somehow managed to get in touch with a member of the Father of the Bride production team, one who not only remembered the exact address of the store, but who also informed him that it had sadly changed hands in recent years.  At the time of the filming, the market was owned by Vons, but the property was shuttered a couple of years back, whereupon it was purchased by Henry’s Farmers Markets and the interior was remodeled shortly thereafter.  Such a shame!  As you can see in these pictures of the former Vons location, though, the exterior, which was not featured in FOTB, still looks almost exactly the same today as it did before Henry’s took over.

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The interior, however, is another story altogether.  While it is a beautiful grocery store, the interior is, sadly, completely and totally unrecognizable from its appearance in Father of the Bride.

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In FOTB, George Banks heads to a local market in order to cool off after having had a bit of a meltdown over his daughter’s impending wedding.  While there, he has an even bigger meltdown over the fact that while hot dogs are sold in packages of eight, hot dog buns are sold in packages of twelve.  So, he decides to take a stand by ripping open packages to remove the four offending buns.  When a befuddled clerk tries to stop him, George says that the hot dog and hot dog bun corporations “are not ripping off this nitwit anymore, because I am not paying for one more thing I don’t need.  George Banks is saying ‘no’!”  LOL  He winds up getting arrested and is sent to jail, where his wife Nina (aka Diane Keaton) has to bail him out.

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And even though the store now looks completely different, I just had to find the hot dog bun aisle while I was there so that I could pose with a package of buns.  Smile

Father of the Bride hot dog scene–Henry’s Market in Burbank

You can watch the Father of the Bride grocery store scene by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the ItsFilmedThere website, for finding this location!  You can check out Chas’ Father of the Bride filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Henry’s Farmers Market, aka the Father of the Bride grocery store, is located at 1011 North San Fernando Boulevard in Burbank.

Our Movie Locations-Themed Scavenger Hunt

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My good friend/party planner extraordinaire Natalie Drees has become famous in our circle over the past few years for creating absolutely amazing customized scavenger hunts.  She plans one for pretty much every event she hosts and not only are they insanely fun, but they also provide a fabulous way for people to get to know each other.  So, once it was decided that our rehearsal dinner would take place at POP Champagne & Dessert Bar in Old Town Pasadena and that all of our family and friends would be invited, I asked Nat if she wouldn’t mind creating a movie locations-themed hunt to cap off our evening.  And, thankfully, she said yes!  Because Nat lives in San Francisco and therefore does not know the Pasadena area all that well, though – nor is she particularly into this thing that we call stalking – she enlisted the help of fellow stalker Owen to carry out the endeavor.  And I have to say that the two pulled it off beautifully!

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Natalie figured that most of our guests wouldn’t be quite as into filming locations as I am, so she based the scavenger hunt not around finding where a specific production was filmed, but around finding particular restaurants and bars in Pasadena that also happened to be filming locations.  If teams could subsequently figure out what was filmed at each particular restaurant or bar – by talking to their servers or using their iPhones – extra points would be awarded, but filming location knowledge was not in any way required to participate.  Besides figuring out which location each clue referred to, teams would also be required to obtain specific items from each location in order to complete the hunt.  As always, each team was given a set of pens, a bag to collect all of our scavenger hunt items, and a book detailing our assignment, the rules of the game, and the clues.

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The booklets were handed out at the end of the rehearsal dinner at POP Champagne Bar and my best friend Kylee, who was managing the hunt, gave all of the teams five minutes to read them over, before yelling out “On your mark . . . get set . . . go!”.  At that point our entire group of fifty literally RAN out of the restaurant!  It was like a mass exodus and I can only imagine what our fellow diners were thinking!  LOL  The scavenger hunt clues read as follows:

Clue Number 1 –  

It’s been said “men want

a lady on the street . . .”

Perhaps women want

An “uomo” who can take the heat.

Once they find him,

They’ll take some “pane”.

Bring it  back to the judge

And you’ll “vincere”.

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The solution to Clue Number 1 was the restaurant Il Fornaio, which was featured in the 2000 movie What Women Want and was actually the very first movie I ever saw being filmed upon moving to Los Angeles.  Before purchasing a house, my parents and I lived in an apartment in Old Town Pasadena and we would walk down to Il Fornaio to grab a bite to eat at least once a week.  We got to know quite a few people who worked at the eatery and one night one of the servers let us know that Mel Gibson was going to be filming a movie at the restaurant the very next day.  So, my mom and I, of course, headed back there bright and early the following morning to watch!  It was an extremely cool experience for both of us and while we did not get to meet Mel Gibson, he did wave to us and say ‘hi’ several times while on his various cigarette breaks.  Anyway, Nat came up with the brilliant idea of using foreign words in each clue which correlated to the type of food served at the restaurants we were supposed to visit.  In the case of Il Fornaio, which is Italian, she used several Italian words – “uomo” translates to “man”, “pane” to “bread”, and “vincere” to “win”.  Well, once I read the words “women want”, I knew exactly which restaurant the clue was referring to and my team (which consisted of me and the GC, my best friend Robin and his girlfriend Steffi, and Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and his fiancé Ame) immediately headed on over there.  Unfortunately though, my mom, of course, also immediately figured out the answer to the clue and was right on our heels!  In the movie, Il Fornaio appeared in the scene in which Nick Marshall (aka Mel Gibson) has lunch with his daughter Alex Marshall (aka Ashley Johnson) after buying her a prom dress.

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One of the rules of the game was that all teams would have to purchase a round of drinks at each and every bar, so as not to anger the various managements by having large groups of people running in and out of the restaurants, causing a disruption.  When we arrived at Il Fornaio, Mike suggested that we each get a shot as we could drink them quickly and then be on to our next location.  Well, I am a complete and total lightweight and typically do not drink anything other than champagne and I really did not want to be doing shots at each and every bar we went into the night before my wedding, so I quickly ixnayed that idea.  But the next thing I knew, my friend Steffi had six full shot glasses lined up in front of her.  I immediately said, “No, I can’t drink a shot!” to which she replied, “These are champagne shots!”  I had no idea what on earth a champagne shot was, but she informed me that she had asked the bartender to pour a bit of champagne into six shot glasses.  The bartender at first balked at the idea, but when Steffi explained that I was a soon-to-be bride who only drank champagne, she agreed and poured us our “champagne shots”.  We are holding them in the above photograph and I can honestly say that that particular moment was one of my favorites of the entire wedding.  So incredibly cute!!!!!!

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Clue Number 2

Don may ride a white horse

To get to this filmed bar.

If he were in gay Paris

This would be more on par.

Once he arrived

A “serviette” he’d obtain.

In Pasadena it’s this,

Hopefully without a stain.

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The solution to Clue Number 2 was Cheval Blanc Bistro, which I blogged about back in December of last year and which was used in the original Father of the Bride movie as the spot where George Banks (aka Steve Martin) takes Bryan MacKenzie (aka George Newbern) for a drink.  Because there are not many French restaurants in Old Town Pasadena, this was an easy one.  Also tipping me off to  the clue’s answer was the fact that Don is my dad’s name, aka the name of the “father of the bride”.  Amazingly enough, my mom and her team were hot on our tail upon arriving at this particular bar, as well!  My aunt Lea, who was on my mom’s team, had asked the bartender at Il Fornaio if she knew of any French restaurants in the area and the bartender told her that the only place she could think of was Cheval Blanc.  My mom’s best friend, who speaks fluent French, immediately said “Cheval Blanc means white horse!  That’s the place!” and they took off for the restaurant.  At Cheval Blanc we were required to obtain a “serviette”, aka a “napkin”.

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Both my team and my mom’s team spent quite a bit of time at this restaurant and ordered a round of drinks and relaxed since we were so far ahead of all of the other groups.  And amazingly enough, my mom’s team happened to meet an actor while at Cheval Blanc and they got his autograph for an extra 50 points!  He wasn’t anyone famous, but he did have his own IMDB page, so he counted as a “star”.

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Clue Number 3 –

You can get a roll

In California’s 91105.

This filming location

You may not recognize.

You won’t need a fork,

But two pieces of wood

To experience

Lindsay’s favorite hood.

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The answer to Clue Number 3 was, of course, Maikobe Japanese Restaurant – aka the former Ruby’s Diner which stood in for the Peach Pit on my favorite show of all time Beverly Hills, 90210.  For anyone who knew anything about me or anything about the city of Pasadena for that matter, this clue was a no-brainer.  In an unfortunate twist of bad luck, though, Maikobe had unexpectedly closed its doors just a few days before our rehearsal dinner, so when we showed up there for the scavenger hunt, we could not go inside to obtain our “two pieces of wood”, aka a set of chop sticks.  Mike immediately started looking around for other sushi restaurants in the area and noticed one directly across the street from Maikobe (perhaps this is why the place went out of business! Winking smile) and ran right on over to grab some chopsticks.  BUT, amazingly enough, my mom’s team had happened to grab a set of chop sticks at Sushi Roku near Il Fornaio earlier during the hunt (they had gone in to collect matchbooks for extra points and the hostess had, for whatever reason, also given them chopsticks!), so as soon as her team realized Maikobe was closed, they immediately started running to the last stop on the hunt and ended up coming in first place!  So, yes, even though Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I were on the same team, we LOST the scavenger hunt!!!!!  Unbelievable!!!!  But at least now you can see where I get my stalking skills from!  In our family, the apple definitely does not fall far from the tree!  On a side note – you can see a great picture of what Maikobe looked like back when it was Ruby’s Diner here.

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Clue Number 4 –

At this Latin lounge with a fitting name

Their life together they can star living

Before their honeymoon, as husband and dame.

Ask for this in your drink-o.

Tie it in a knot with your tongue

To get an extra cinco.

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The solution to Clue Number 4 was Vive Lounge, where fave movie A Lot Like Love was filmed.  At the time the movie was filmed, the place was a Chinese-Malaysian fusion restaurant named Nonya, but that eatery closed down back in 2006 whereupon Vive moved in.  Amazingly enough, very little of the  décor was changed upon the transition and the restaurant still looked almost exactly the same as it did in the movie.  Because there is only one Latin-themed lounge in Pasadena, my mom and her team were easily able to figure out what location the final clue was referring to.  Especially once they realized that “vive” translates to “live” in Spanish.  For winning the hunt, each member of my mom’s team was awarded with a bag of microwave popcorn and a pass for a free movie at any AMC Theatre.  So incredibly cool!  All in the all, the scavenger hunt turned out FABULOUS and all of our guests, even those who seriously lagged behind, absolutely LOVED it.  It was the perfect end to a perfect evening.  On a sad side note, though – the GC and I walked by Vive this past Friday night and discovered that it had closed it doors!  I can only hope that the new owners also choose to keep the original Nonya’s décor so that all of us stalkers can still appreciate it.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Natalie Drees can create customized scavenger hunts for parties and corporate events based upon any and all sorts of themes.  You can contact her via her event planning website Pop Planning.  Il Fornaio, from What Women Want, is located at 24 West Union Street in Old Town Pasadena.  You can visit Il Fornaio’s website here.  Cheval Blanc Bistro, from Father of the Bride, is located at 41 South De Lacey Avenue, also in Old Town Pasadena.  You can visit the Cheval Blanc website here.  The former Maikobe restaurant, aka the Peach Pit from Beverly Hills, 90210, is located at 45 South Fair Oaks Avenue in Pasadena, but is currently vacant.  Vive Lounge, the former Nonya restaurant from A Lot Like Love, is located at 61 North Raymond Avenue in Pasadena, but is also currently vacant.  You can visit the former Vive Lounge website here.