Golden Gate Fields from “Metro” – And a Special Fundraising Event for the Alzheimer’s Association

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My BFF since the age of 9, Natalie, will be hosting a charity event in honor of her grandfather, Ed Lingsch, on June 14th in the San Francisco area.  Ed passed away just shy of his 98th birthday on November 12th, 2011 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s Disease.  Nat worked for Ed’s real estate company, eventually taking over the business, and cared for her beloved “Gramps” for the last decade of his life.  During that time, she penned a blog called Laugh or Cry which chronicled the heartbreaking and sometimes funny trials and tribulations of dealing with an Alzheimer’s patient.  This particular post about Gramps’ plans to run away, armed solely with a briefcase full of pilfered Starbucks gift cards, is one of my favorites.  A man after my own heart!  Ed was a longtime fan of horseracing and even owned several winning steeds during his lifetime.  I remember attending one of his winning races with Nat and watching with glee as he stepped into the winner’s circle to pose for photographs.  So when Nat decided to host a fundraising event in his honor, she figured what better place to do it than at Golden Gate Fields in Berkeley.  As fate would have it, Golden Gate Fields just so happens to be a filming location!  But more on that in a bit.

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The Ed Lingsch Derby Day Alzheimer’s Benefit will consist of an afternoon at the races, a buffet lunch, and a silent auction for such items as a week-long stay in Tahoe, gifts from my favorite store Lula Mae, cooking lessons, a Producer of the Day spot on the Sarah & Vinnie Morning Show on Alice 97.3, 49ers tickets, as well as many more.  All proceeds will be donated to the Alzheimer’s Association.  So the purpose of today’s blog post is not just to chronicle a filming location, but to inform my San Francisco-based readers about the event (tickets are $46 and can be purchased here) and to ask any fellow stalkers who feel so inclined to donate an item for the silent auction (you can find our more information on donating to the auction by emailing Nat at info@alzderbyday.com).  You can also donate directly to the Alzheimer’s Association in Ed Lingsch’s name here.  (That’s Nat dancing with Gramps at her wedding in 2006.)

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Golden Gate Fields is Northern California’s last remaining major racetrack.  [Bay Meadows (where I would often accompany Nat and her family to watch Ed’s horses race) was shuttered in May 2008.]  The 140-acre site, which originally opened to the public on February 1st, 1941, boasts two tracks – a one-mile synthetic track and a 9/10-mile turf course.

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The site also features an 8,000-seat grandstand, a club house, a turf club, simulcast rooms and stunning views of San Francisco Bay and and the Berkeley Hills.

Golden Gate Fields has many claims to fame.  Russell Baze, the winningest jockey in the world, won 27 titles there.  The location was also the home track of the celebrated horses Silky Sullivan and Lost in the Fog.  Silky is now buried on the premises, beneath the yellow and white marker visible in the photograph below.

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As I mentioned, Golden Gate Fields is also a filming location.  Shortly before it opened to the public, it was utilized briefly for the 1941 comedy Shadow of a Thin Man.

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It was at Golden Gate Fields that hostage negotiator Scott Roper (Eddie Murphy) taught Kevin McCall (Michael Rapaport) the intricacies of racing in the 1997 action comedy Metro.

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While there, Roper explains that the reason he likes the races is, “The multitude of possibilities.  Everything is here for you to see if you just know what conditions to look for, just like a hostage situation.”

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A portion of Rancid’s 2009 “Last One To Die” music video was also shot at Golden Gate Fields.

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Don’t forget, you can visit the Alzheimer’s Derby Day website here, purchase tickets to the event and/or donate to the Alzheimer’s Association on Eventbrite here, make a donation to the silent auction by emailing info@alzderbyday.com, and follow the event on Facebook here, Instagram here and Twitter here.  Any help my fellow stalkers can give would be much appreciated!

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For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Golden Gate Fields, from Metro, is located at 1100 Eastshore Highway in Berkeley.  You can visit the Fields’ official website here.

The Moonlight Mile Bar from “Beautiful Girls”

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While going through my trusty stalking notebook this morning, I realized that I still have quite the backlog of Minnesota filming locations that I have yet to blog about.  Not to mention the slew of Seattle locales that I haven’t even yet begun to post!  I’m going to mix them all in with L.A. area locations over the next few weeks so that my fellow stalkers don’t get bored reading about the same city over and over again.  But for today I thought I’d write about Minneapolis’ Nomad World Pub, the watering hole which stood in for the supposed Knight’s Ridge-area “Moonlight Mile” bar where Paul Kirkwood (aka Michael Rapaport) took Andera Womack (aka Uma Thurman) on a date in fave move Beautiful Girls.  At the time, the bar was known as the 5 Corners Saloon, but ownership changed hands back in December of 2004 and so did the name.  I found this location, once again, thanks to fellow stalker Owen and his highly-coveted Beautiful Girls master locations list!  So, I, of course, just had to drag my parents out to stalk the place while we were in Minnesota this past May. 

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In Beautiful Girls, Paul cooks up a ruse to bring “the lovely Andera” out on on a date at the Moonlight Mile bar for the sole purpose of making his ex-girlfriend Jan (aka Martha Plimpton), who hangs out there regularly, jealous.  And I am very happy to report that even though ownership of the establishment has changed and over fourteen years have passed since Beautiful Girls was filmed, the interior of the Nomad still looks much the same as it did in the movie.  YAY!

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And, as it was portrayed in the flick, Nomad World Pub is actually a live-music venue.

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Sadly though, the set of booths where Paul and Andera sat in Beautiful Girls, which used to run along the pub’s north side, have long since been removed.  🙁  I was seriously disappointed once I realized that as I had so wanted to sit in the exact spot where Michael Rapaport and Uma Thurman sat in the scene.  UGH!  Have I mentioned before how much I dislike change??  😉

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Even though little has been altered since Nomad World Pub took over ownership of the property, the former 5 Corners Saloon is apparently well-missed.  There is even a Facebook page named “Remember the 5 Corners Saloon” that has been set up in honor of the historic former bar.  So darn cool!  You can see photographs of how the place used to look here.

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For whatever reason, a different location entirely – a place known as Rich’s Health Shop in Stillwater, Minnesota – stood in for the Moonlight Mile’s exterior in Beautiful Girls.  Sadly though, that building was torn down several years ago to make room for a new loft development, so I did not get to stalk it.   And as you can see in the above photograph and screen capture, it beared little resemblance to the 5 Corners Saloon’s actual exterior.

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Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Nomad World Pub, aka the Moonlight Mile bar from Beautiful Girls, is located at 501 Cedar Avenue South in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  You can visit the pub’s official website here.  Rich’s Health Shop, which was used as the exterior of the Moonlight Mile bar and has since been torn down, was located at 304 Main Street North in Stillwater, Minnesota.

Jan’s Duplex from “Beautiful Girls”

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One of the locations that I was most excited about stalking while in Minnesota three weeks ago (and I can hardly even believe that it’s already been three weeks!) was the duplex where Jan (aka Martha Plimpton) lived in fave movie Beautiful Girls.  The residence is actually located in Hopkins, a city about thirteen miles west of Minneapolis and a bit out of the way from the other Beautiful Girls locations.  I found this spot, once again, thanks to Owen and his Beautiful Girls master locations list and, as far as I can tell, it is the only locale from the movie that can be found in the Hopkins area.  It always strikes me as odd when one location from a particular film is not in close proximity to any of the other locations used and I often wonder about the decision-making process that led producers to choose an out-of-the-way locale.  The one that most boggles my mind is the main house from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, which is located in Long Beach, California – a good 1,700 miles away from every single other FB location, all of which can be found in Chicago, Illinois.  Were the filmmakers honestly unable to find a house in the entire state of Illinois at which to film?  While that doesn’t sound very likely to me, it must have been the case, otherwise why would they journey all the way to California just to film at that one, solitary location?  The whole thing doesn’t make sense, either way, but I digress.  Even though Jan’s duplex was a bit out of the way, because it holds a very special place in my heart, I just had to stalk it anyway. 

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Jan’s duplex shows up repeatedly throughout Beautiful Girls, in the scenes in which her incredibly jealous former boyfriend, Paul Kirkwood (aka Michael Rapaport), who works as a snow plow driver, is shown finishing off his shift each morning by burying her driveway with snow, making it so that she can’t open her garage door.  Let me tell you, it is absolutely hilarious to watch the joy with which Paul does this each and every day.

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And then, towards the end of the movie, something shifts in Paul and he realizes that his relationship with Jan is truly over.  In one of the final scenes, he is shown early one morning, tears streaming down his face, removing all of the snow from Jan’s driveway, while she looks on from the second-story window.  Even though I have seen Beautiful Girls over thirty times, watching that scene never fails to bring tears to my eyes.  It’s an incredibly touching moment in the movie and was the reason I wanted to stalk Jan’s house so badly.  In fact, just being there in person, standing in the duplex’s driveway and looking up at that second-story window, made me teary-eyed.  God, I love that movie!

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And even though there have certainly been some changes to the property since filming took place there back in 1996, Jan’s duplex is, for the most part, very recognizable.  I was completely floored over the fact that, even though the paint color is now different, the decorative wood “V’s” on the front of the house were still in place. 

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As were the mailbox and address plaque which appeared in the movie.  So darn cool!  I honestly can’t recommend stalking this location enough!  Being there in person brought back many fond memories of the movie for me and the residence was easily one of my favorite stalking stops in all of Minnesota.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Jan’s duplex from Beautiful Girls is located at 113-115 6th Avenue North in Hopkins, Minnesota.  Jan lived in Unit 113.

Bryant-Lake Bowl from “Beautiful Girls”

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

The Johnson Inn Restaurant from “Beautiful Girls”

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The other Beautiful Girls location that I was most excited about stalking (second only to the main houses used in the movie, of course), while in Minnesota two weeks ago, was the Johnson Inn – the local “Knight’s Ridge, Massachusetts” watering hole where Willie Conway (aka Timothy Hutton), Tommy “Birdman” Rowland (aka Matt Dillon), Paul Kirkwood (aka Michael Rapaport) and the rest of the gang hung out in the flick.  Interestingly enough, two locations actually stood in for the Johnson Inn in Beautiful Girls – one location was used for the interior scenes, while a second one was used for the exteriors.  Fellow stalker Owen tracked down both locales for me thanks to his Beautiful Girls master locations list, but, sadly, while the exterior location is still alive and well, the interior – a Minneapolis-area restaurant named Winfield Potters – closed its doors over a decade ago.  🙁  But because the locations were the site of one of my very favorite scenes from the movie, I just had to stalk both of them.

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The above-mentioned favorite scene – and believe me, I know that over the past week I’ve described numerous Beautiful Girls scenes as my “favorite” 🙂 – involves professional piano player Willie Conway leading his buddies in a sing-a-long of the classic Neil Diamond song “Sweet Caroline”.  And even though my dad has been a lifelong fan of the singer, before watching Beautiful Girls for the first time back in 1996, I don’t think I had ever heard any Neil Diamond songs in their entirety.  But once I saw the Beautiful Girls “Sweet Caroline” scene, that was it for me – I suddenly, and unexpectedly, became a total ND junkie!  Even now, fourteen years later, I am still a HUGE fan and my iPod is stocked with pretty much every song the guy ever recorded.  All thanks to one very brief scene from a movie that premiered almost one and a half decades ago.  

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Because the “Sweet Caroline” scene had such a huge impact on me, I was absolutely DYING to stalk the spot where Willie C. and Company had so memorably belted out that “good times never seemed so good”.  So, you can imagine my heartbreak when Owen emailed me to let me know that Winfield Potters restaurant, which did indeed used to have a piano in the bar area for patrons to play, was no longer.  UGH!  Such an incredible bummer!  But I still just had to stalk the restaurant’s former location, which has since been turned into an office building for a company called Clientek.  

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According to a super nice and very informative waiter at a nearby restaurant my parents and I had dined at earlier that day, the Winfield Potters patio used to be quite the popular spot for Minnesota diners during the warm summer months.  So, amazingly enough, once Clientek took over the space, they opted to keep the patio intact in order to host barbeques and events for their employees during temperate weather.  

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While there, I was absolutely FLOORED to discover a plaque honoring the former Winfield Potters location on the wall outside of the patio area.  So darn cool!  Of course, I think there should also be a notation on the plaque which touts the restaurant’s cinematic history, as well, but I digress.

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I, of course, also peeked inside the Clientek offices to see if I could spot any small piece of the restaurant which still remained, but, sadly, there wasn’t anything.  I can’t tell you how heartbreaking this particular stalk was for me, as I had so badly wanted to see Willie C.’s piano.  Sigh.

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I am happy to report, though, that the Marine General Store, the small grocery store which was used for the exterior shots of the Johnson Inn, looks very much the same today as it did when Beautiful Girls was filmed back in 1996.  There are some differences, of course, but for the most part, the location is very recognizable from the movie. 

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And, even though no filming actually took place there, I just had to stalk the interior of the General Store, as well.  While doing so, I asked the girl at the front counter if the movie Beautiful Girls had been filmed on the premises, to which she said, “I don’t know.  Let me check.”  She then proceeded to pull up a list of about one hundred movies on her computer screen.  Well, let me tell you, I took one look at that list and just about passed out from excitement and said, “WOW!  How many movies have been filmed here?”  The girl looked at me utterly flabbergasted and explained, “This is the list of movies we have for rent.  I thought you were inquiring about a movie rental.”  LOL  As I mentioned in a previous post, I am rapidly discovering that most people in this world have never even heard of Beautiful Girls, including, apparently, people who work at locations where filming of the movie actually took place!   

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Anyway, the girl at the counter, who was very nice, directed me to the manager of the store, who, amazingly enough, had actually heard of Beautiful Girls and even knew about its filming.  She told me that the big fight scene between Tommy “Birdman” Rowland and Steve Rossmore (aka Sam Robards) at the end of the film took place in the General Store’s back parking lot.

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Unfortunately, though, there was a van parked in front of the stairway that Tommy walks down in the scene, so I couldn’t get a perfect shot of it. 

You can watch the Beautiful Girls “Sweet Caroline” scene by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding these locations for me!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The exterior of the Johnson Inn Restaurant from Beautiful Girls is the Marine General Store, which is located at 101 Judd Street in Marine on Saint Croix, about twelve miles north of Stillwater.  The interior of the Johnson Inn was the former Winfield Potters restaurant, which used to be located at 212 2nd Street SE in Minneapolis.

The River Oasis Cafe from “Beautiful Girls”

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Another Stillwater, Minnesota location that my family and I stalked last week was the River Oasis Cafe from fave movie Beautiful Girls.  And I’m really hoping that my fellow stalkers are not yet sick of reading about Beautiful Girls locations, ‘cause there are still quite a few of them that I’ve yet to blog about.  😉  Anyway, I found out about this locale thanks to the master locations list that fellow stalker Owen purveyed for me before I left on my trip to the North Star State.  Thank you, Owen!  And even though the River Oasis Cafe only appeared in one fairly brief scene in the movie, I just had to stalk the place.  Especially since my mom was absolutely starving upon our arrival in Stillwater and mentioned that she wanted to dine at a “local greasy spoon”, to which I said, “I know just the place!”  🙂

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The River Oasis Cafe appeared in the very beginning of Beautiful Girls, in one of the opening scenes in which Tommy “Birdman” Rowland (aka Matt Dillon), Paul Kirkwood (aka Michael Rapaport), and Kev (aka Max Perlich) are shown eating an early morning breakfast after finishing that day’s snow plow rounds.  And I am very happy to report that the restaurant looks much the same in person as it did onscreen in the movie!

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Except for the large billboard which stands in the cafe’s front parking lot, though, which was covered over during the filming to read “Welcome to Knight’s Ridge”, the fictional town where Beautiful Girls was set.

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Because a wide shot of the interior of the River Oasis Cafe was never shown in the movie, I wasn’t exactly sure of where Paul, Tommy, and Kev sat during the scene, but thankfully our SUPER nice waitress was able to point me in the right direction.  🙂

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And while some people were already occupying the Beautiful Girls’ booth when we first arrived at the restaurant, as soon as they left I immediately ran over and snagged it so that I could snap a pic in the exact spot where Matt Dillon and Max Perlich sat during the filming.  🙂

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Ironically enough, while we were dining my dad randomly took a photograph of the above-pictured sign which hangs near the River Oasis Cafe’s front door.  So, imagine my surprise when I re-watched Beautiful Girls upon returning home from Minnesota and saw that very same sign hanging in pretty much the very same spot near the restaurant’s front door in the scene in which Paul is shown making a phone call to his former girlfriend Jan (aka Martha Plimpton).  Nice work, dad!!!  🙂

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While we were stalking the Cafe, my parents and I had the pleasure of meeting Craig Beemer – the restaurant’s owner/dishwasher, as he likes to call himself  🙂 – who truly could NOT have been nicer.  Not only did he agree to pose for a photograph with me for my blog, but he also snapped a pic of me sitting in the Beautiful Girls’ booth to put on the River Oasis Cafe’s “Faces of Oasis” Facebook page.  🙂  He even seemed amenable to my suggestion of putting a plaque on the Beautiful Girls’ booth so that diners would be aware of the movie magic that took place in that spot just over fourteen years ago!  So, Craig, if you’re reading this, I fully expect to see that plaque in place the next time I’m in Stillwater!  🙂  I honestly cannot recommend stalking the River Oasis Cafe enough – it’s a fabulous restaurant, which serves up some excellent food, and the staff truly could not be nicer!  Love it!  Love it!  Love it!

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On a side note – The owner of Willie’s house from Beautiful Girls, which I blogged about on Wednesday, mentioned that his neighbors always joke about creating a tour of all of the movie’s locations in the Stillwater area.  I told him what a FABULOUS idea I thought that was, but I don’t think he took me seriously.  But, let me tell you, even though I’ve already visited pretty much every spot which appeared in the movie, I would SO sign up for that tour.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location for me!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The River Oasis Cafe from Beautiful Girls is located at 806 Main Street South in Stillwater, Minnesota.  You can visit the River Oasis Cafe’s Facebook page here.