Fat Sal’s Deli – Jerry Ferrara’s Restaurant

Fat Sal's Westwood (5 of 11)

I’m back, people!  To say that last week was a blast would be an understatement.  It was honestly one of the best weeks of my life and a really special birthday celebration.  There was never a dull moment and I am officially exhausted (and now have a cold), but it was well worth it!  A huge THANK YOU to the Grim Cheaper and my friends Lavonna, Kim, Katie and Kaylee for making it all happen.  One of our many adventures (and I will be blogging about all of them soon) included hitting up the premiere of How to Train Your Dragon 2 in Westwood.  We arrived on the scene bright and early only to learn that the premiere had been postponed from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.  Yeah, no thank you!  After quickly deciding to bail (and after randomly running into fellow stalker Anushika, from the Mike the Fanboy family – that’s her in the above picture), we did some shopping nearby (I got an adorable dress at Brandy Melville) and then I dragged the entire gang over to grab a bite to eat at Fat Sal’s Deli, a place I had wanted to stalk for ages due to the fact that it is owned by cutie Jerry Ferrara, aka Turtle from Entourage.

[ad]

Jerry founded Fat Sal’s in 2010, along with his childhood pals Josh Stone and Sal Capek.  Frustrated over their inability to find good East Coast-style sandwiches in Los Angeles, the three native New Yorkers decided to open up their own place.   Their first outpost was on Gayley Avenue in a walk-up space that formerly housed a sausage stand named Spoc’s.  Thanks to its fab food, late night hours (it does not close until 3 a.m. most days) and proximity to UCLA, Fat Sal’s became wildly successful and two sister restaurants were eventually opened – one in Hollywood and one in San Diego.  A fourth is set to launch later this year in Austin, Texas.

Fat Sal's Westwood (2 of 11)

Fat Sal's Westwood (8 of 11)

Fat Sal’s menu is unique to say the least, with such offerings as Pepperoni Pizza Fries (French fries covered in chopped pepperoni, mozzarella cheese and marinara sauce), the Fat Jerry (a hero sandwich comprised of chicken fingers, cheesesteak, fried mozzarella sticks, bacon, eggs, French fries, mayo, ketchup, salt and pepper) and Meat Luv’rz Pizza Rolls (spring rolls filled with pepperoni, ground beef, sweet Italian sausage, provolone, mozzarella and marinara sauce).  I played it safe and opted for Fat Sal’s Cheese Dog, which, as you can see below, I was pretty darn excited about.  And I am happy to report that the dog did not disappoint.  It was delish!

Fat Sal's Westwood (10 of 11)

The gang all loved their orders, as well.  (That’s our group pictured below.)  And while we tried to convince Lavonna to order the Big Fat Fatty, she was having none of it.  For those not in the know, the Big Fat Fatty is a 27-inch (!!) hero filled with five cheeseburgers, a pound of pastrami, cheesesteak, chicken fingers, bacon, mozzarella sticks, fried eggs, jalapeno poppers, French fries, onion rings, chili, marinara sauce and fat sauce.  The monster sandwich costs a whopping $49.95, but if a patron can eat the whole thing in forty minutes or less, it’s free!  If someone does manage to accomplish such a feat, he or she gets to design and name a sandwich that will then be added to Sal’s menu.

 

Fat Sal's Westwood (11 of 11)

In 2011, Fat Sal’s was featured in the pilot of Planet Green’s Suzilla: The Mouth that Roars.  In the episode, series star Suzanna French, aka “Suzilla,” who just so happens to be the fourth-ranked competitive eater in the world, attempted to eat a Big Fat Fatty.  Spoiler alert – she was not successful.

ScreenShot1369

ScreenShot1371

You can watch the Suzilla: The Mouth that Roars episode by clicking below.

The eatery was also featured in the Season 19 episode of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives titled “Righteous Bites,” which just aired a couple of weeks ago.  You can watch the episode on Amazon, iTunes or Xfinity here.

ScreenShot1361

ScreenShot1364

I was super excited to see Guy Fieri’s autograph on the wall while we were there.

Fat Sal's Westwood (6 of 11)

Fat Sal's Westwood (7 of 11)

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.  And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Fat Sal's Westwood (4 of 11)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The original Fat Sal’s Deli is located at 972 Gayley Avenue in Westwood.  You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

Bryant-Lake Bowl from “Beautiful Girls”

P1040305

To appease my good friend and fellow stalker Mike, from MovieShotsLA, who has been on my case ALL WEEK about my constant Minnesota blogging, beginning tomorrow I will be returning to my old stomping grounds, so to speak, by writing about locales in the Los Angeles area.  Unfortunately for Mike, though, there are still quite a few North Star State locations in my backlog that I’ve yet to post about.  So, I guess I’ll just have to intermix them with my L.A. locales from this point forward – otherwise Mike might very well stop reading my blog!  🙂  For today, though, I thought I’d do a post about Bryant- Lake Bowl, the combination restaurant/bar/bowling alley/live stage theatre that appeared in fave movie Beautiful Girls.  I found this location, of course, thanks to fellow stalker Owen and his Beautiful Girls master locations list.  Thank you, Owen!

IMG_0364IMG_0365

From what I have been able to gather online, Bryant-Lake Bowl, which was originally just a bowling alley, has been a Minneapolis staple for ages upon ages, although I am unsure of the exact date that it first opened.  As fate would have it, though, in 1993, a woman named Kim Bartmann stopped in to bowl a few games and immediately decided she just had to buy the place.  She sought out the owner and begged him to sell to her, which he eventually did, and Kim quickly set about not only transforming they alley’s former arcade room into an 85-seat live theatre venue, but also added a restaurant to the mix.  Sadly, though, this was yet another restaurant that I did not get a chance to eat at while in Minnesota because, as I’ve said before, there were just far too many locations and not enough time to properly stalk them all.  🙁  Which is quite a shame, too, as apparently the place serves up some killer grub!  Bryant-Lake Bowl’s menu includes such savory items as asparagus risotto, pad thai, and cooked-to-order, organic, grass-fed, free-range bison hash!  Not your typical bowling alley fare, you say?  Well, that’s exactly the point!  Kim wanted to give her patrons a gourmet restaurant experience in the unlikeliest of places.  The idea quickly caught on and Bryant-Lake Bowl is now THE place to be on Friday and Saturday nights.

[ad]

IMG_0366P1040308 

Bryant-Lake Bowl is also something of a celebrity hotspot, as well.  According to one of the super nice servers I spoke with, Matt Dillon is a huge Bryant-Lake Bowl fan and dines there regularly whenever he is in town.  In fact, I am fairly certain that the only reason the restaurant was chosen as a location for Beautiful Girls was because of Matt Dillon’s connection to the place.  According to online reviews, actor Josh Hartnett, who grew up in nearby St. Paul, is also a frequent patron of the bowling alley.

ScreenShot4533 ScreenShot4535

ScreenShot4537ScreenShot4540

In Beautiful Girls, Bryant-Lake Bowl stood in for the restaurant where Paul Kirkwood’s (aka Michael Rapaport’s) former girlfriend Jan (aka Martha Plimpton) worked as a waitress.  In the very beginning of the movie, Paul shows up to the bowling alley in a moment of spontaneity to propose to Jan with a “champagne-colored” engagement ring, even though he knows that she has long since been dating someone else – a man whom Paul has dubbed “Victor, the Meat-Cutter”.  Victor is a running joke throughout the movie due to the fact that Paul cannot comprehend how his ex-girlfriend Jan, a vegetarian, can act with such hypocrisy by dating a person who cuts meat for a living.  LOL

ScreenShot4538ScreenShot4539

Filming took place both inside Bryant-Lake Bowl and on the sidewalk directly in front of the restaurant’s main entrance. 

The Season 4 episode of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives entitled “Totally Unexpected” was also filmed at Bryant-Lake Bowl, during which host Guy Fieri sampled the restaurant’s Smoked Trout and Beet Salad with Green Goddess Dressing.  You can watch the episode by clicking above.

IMG_0362

According to the waitress I spoke to, the bowling alley was also featured in the 1999 movie Grumpier Old Men, but I rented the flick last night and did not see the place anywhere.  I’m guessing that either the scene that was filmed there wound up on the cutting room floor or that the waitress mistakenly mixed up movie titles when telling me about which productions had been filmed on the premises. 

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Bryant-Lake Bowl is located at 810 West Lake Street in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  You can visit the official Bryant-Lake Bowl website here.