Dinah’s Family Restaurant from “Modern Family”

Dinah's Family Restaurant Modern Family (36 of 44)

While I primarily love stalking filming locations of the residential variety, restaurants come in at a close second.  So when my friend Owen, of the When Write Is Blog, recently told me about Dinah’s Family Restaurant, a historic Westchester eatery that was featured in a Season 3 episode of Modern Family, I ran right out to stalk it – and grab a bite to eat.

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Dinah’s Family Restaurant was originally established in 1959 by the Ernst family.

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Dinah's Family Restaurant Modern Family (31 of 44)

It is still owned by the same family today.  Mario Ernst and his wife, Teri, took over operations of the restaurant in 1989.

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The couple gave both the interior and the menu an upgrade shortly thereafter.  Thankfully though, the place still has a fabulous retro feel.

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Dinah's Family Restaurant

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The eatery is most famous for its Secret Recipe Chicken.  According to Gayot, over 1,500,000 pieces of it have been sold since Dinah’s opening!  I decided to forgo the fried chicken while there and opted for my usual order of chicken strips.  They were fabulous, as were the mashed potatoes and gravy that they came with.  The Grim Cheaper opted for a turkey sandwich and it was uh-ma-zing, too!  The turkey looked and tasted like it had literally just been carved.  I actually ended up liking his sandwich more than my chicken strips.  Sacrilege, I know!

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Dinah's Restaurant 2

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According to a fabulous Eater L.A. article, Dinah’s bucket-shaped signage served as the inspiration for the famous Kentucky Fried Chicken signs.  Apparently, a former Dinah’s server went to work for KFC in the 1960s, told them about the bucket sign, they copied it and the rest is history!

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Dinah's Family Restaurant Modern Family (14 of 44)

Thanks to its retro aesthetic, Dinah’s has been featured numerous times onscreen.  In the Season 3 episode of Modern Family titled “The Last Walt,” the eatery masked as the Moonbeam Diner where Phil Dunphy (Ty Burrell), in the hopes of creating a special memory, took his daughter Alex (Ariel Winter) to sample the “World’s Greatest Milkshake.”   As Phil says, “You can’t expect me to see a sign that says ‘World’s Greatest Milkshake – 50 miles’ and not drive to it!”  Unfortunately, after driving said 50 miles and arriving at the diner, they discover that the milkshake machine is broken.  Phil then makes Alex try everything labeled “World’s Greatest” on the Moonbeam’s menu, eventually causing her to throw up all over their booth.

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The exterior of Dinah’s also appears in the episode in a very heartwarming scene in which Phil writes Alex’s initials on the restaurant’s sign, imitating a gesture that Apollo 17 astronaut Eugene Cernan made for his daughter during a moon landing.

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Dinah’s Family Restaurant masqueraded as Stacks House of Pancakes, where the German nihilists dined on lingonberry pancakes, in the 1998 Coen Brothers comedy The Big Lebowski.

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Wilson (Terence Stamp) and Elaine (Lesley Ann Warren) have dinner at Dinah’s in the ultra-weird 1999 crime drama The Limey.

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While Little Miss Sunshine was not actually filmed at Dinah’s, a bucket of the restaurant’s famous fried chicken did make an appearance in the 2006 comedy.  In one of the movie’s early scenes, Sheryl Hoover (Toni Collete) brings Dinah’s home for dinner, which is amusing considering the fact that the Hoover family supposedly lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Grandpa Edwin Hoover (Alan Arkin) is not happy with Sheryl’s take-out choice and says, “What’s that?  Chicken?  Every night it’s the f*cking chicken!  Holy God almighty!  Is it possible, just once, we could get something to eat for dinner around here that’s not the goddamn f*cking chicken?“

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Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) interviews Rick (Riz Ahmed) to be his new intern at Dinah’s in the 2014 thriller Nightcrawler.

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In the Season 2 episode of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. titled “Love in the Time of Hydra,” which aired this past March, Agent 33 (Ming-Na Wen) and Grant Ward (Brett Dalton) kidnap Selwyn (Landall Goolsby) from Dinah’s.

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Dinah’s Family Restaurant also appeared in an episode of Malcolm in the Middle, though I am unsure of which episode.

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Dinah's Family Restaurant Modern Family (28 of 44)

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

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for telling me about this location!  Smile

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Dinah’s Family Restaurant, aka the Moonbeam Diner from Modern Family, is located at 6521 South Sepulveda Boulevard in Westchester.  You can visit Dinah’s official website here.

Lucky Strike Lanes in Hollywood

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Two weekends ago, while doing some stalking in the Hollywood area, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to the Hollywood & Highland Shopping Center to grab a quick drink at Lucky Strike Lanes, an oft-used filming location and celebrity hot-spot.  While I had first heard about the bowling alley/lounge when it originally opened eight years ago and knew of its appearance on numerous reality series, for whatever reason I did not have much interest in stalking the place.  Then, a couple of months ago, fellow stalker Lavonna happened to tell me a little bit of trivia about the alley that had me absolutely chomping at the bit to go see it.

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Lavonna informed me that when the iconic Hollywood Star Lanes, which first opened in 1960 and was where the majority of the movie The Big Lebowski was filmed, was torn down back in 2003 to make way for a new elementary school, the owners of the soon-to-be opened Lucky Strike decided to purchase all of the wood that comprised Hollywood Star’s Lane #7.  They then proceeded to use that wood to construct the bar at their new establishment.  How incredibly cool is that?

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They also purchased the exterior neon signage from Hollywood Star Lanes to use as a wall hanging.  Love, love, love it!

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As you can see above, Lucky Strike Lanes is a VERY cool little spot.  Unfortunately, I have to say that I was not all that crazy about the food.  And sadly, the GC and I did not have time to do any bowling while we were there, but fellow stalker Lavonna has plans to hit the place up when she comes to visit L.A. in November, so you know what that means – I will definitely be doing a re-stalk!  Smile

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As I mentioned above, Lucky Strike Lanes in Hollywood is an oft-used filming location.  In the Season 6 episode of The Hills titled “The Elephant in the Room”, Kristin Cavallari, Brodie Jenner, Frankie Delgado, Stacie Hall (aka Stacie the Bartender), and Audrina Patridge and her new boyfriend, singer Ryan Cabrera, spent the evening bowling and flirting at Lucky Strike.

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Ryan Cabrera returned to the bowling alley to film the Season 1 episode of the ULTRA-stupid reality show Pretty Wild titled ”The Hearing”, in which he angers series star Tess Taylor by inviting a friend to accompany them on their date.

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Vinnie Chase (aka Adrian Grenier), Eric Murphy (aka Kevin Connolly), Johnny ‘Drama’ Chase (aka Kevin Dillon), and Turtle (aka Jerry Ferrara) took their girlfriends, one of whom was Gossip Girl’s Leighton Meester, to Lucky Strike for an evening of bowling in the Season 1 episode of Entourage titled “Date Night”.

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In the Season 11 episode of America’s Next Top Model titled “Fierce Eyes”, J Alexander hosted a runway challenge at Lucky Strike in which the models had to practice walking down the super-slippery bowling lanes while wearing high heels.

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In the Season 1 episode of No Ordinary Family titled “No Ordinary Sidekick”, Jim Powell (aka Michael Chiklis), along with his family, Stephanie (aka Dexter’s Julie Benz), Daphne (aka Kay Panabaker), and J.J. (aka Jimmy Bennett), and their friends Katie Andrews (aka The O.C.’s Autumn Reeser) and George St. Cloud (aka Romany Malco), spend the evening using their super-powers to bowl at Lucky Strike.

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And while I had originally believed that the Season 1 episode of fave show 90210 titled “Lucky Strike” was filmed at the Lucky Strike Lanes in Hollywood, as it turns out filming actually took place at the chain’s Torrance location, inside of the Del Amo Shopping Center.

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And the Season 2 episode of Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County titled “Since You Been Gone” was filmed at the chain’s Block at Orange location.

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As I mentioned above, Lucky Strike Lanes is also a veritable celebrity magnet. Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there include Drew Barrymore, Liv Tyler, John Mayer, Glee’s Cory Monteith, The Bachelorette’s Ali Fedotowsky and Roberto Martinez, Demi Moore, Bruce Willis, Rumor Willis, Geena Davis, Robin Williams, Paris Hilton, Nick Carter, Matthew Lillard, Fergie and Taboo from the Black Eyed Peas, Mandy Moore, Judy Greer, Vanessa Hudgens, Courteney Cox, Nicole Richie, Trevor Donovan, Jessica Simpson, and even my girl Jen Aniston.  I once spotted David Arquette walking into the bowling alley for some sort of celebrity event back in December of 2008 and while I tried to take the above photograph of him, as you can see, it did not turn out very well due to the bright lights on the red carpet. You can definitely tell it is him, though.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Lavonna for telling me about this location!  Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Lucky Strike Lanes is located at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard, inside of the Hollywood & Highland Shopping Center, in Hollywood.  You can visit the bowling alley’s official website here.