Your definitive source to filming locations and all things Hollywood!
I would like to wish all of my fellow stalkers a very merry Christmas today! You can check out my new Los Angeles magazine post here – about Cindy’s Eagle Rock Restaurant from Surviving Christmas. My articles typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.
I cannot believe that Christmas is only two days away! This whole month (year, in fact) has flown by! Sadly, this will be my last post of the season (excluding one that will run on L.A. magazine’s website on Thursday). I will be taking the rest of the week off to do some last-minute shopping and to celebrate Christmas with my family. For my final holiday-themed post, I thought it would only be fitting to write about another The Holiday location – the Blockbuster Video featured in the 2006 romantic comedy.
[ad]
I had read online a while back that the Blockbuster used in The Holiday was located somewhere in Brentwood, so I did a simple Google search for “Blockbuster” and “Brentwood” and was led to a former location of the once-popular video store chain at 11770 San Vicente Boulevard. Today, the space houses a branch of the First Republic Bank, but thanks to the fact that several of its features have remained the same despite the change of hands, I was able to determine that it was the right spot.
First, I was able to match a tree located on San Vicente Boulevard across from First Republic Bank to the tree visible outside of the Blockbuster in the scene (though my photograph below was taken from a slightly different angle than that of the film).
For those who have never visited the area, San Vicente Boulevard is lined with a large central median that is dotted with numerous unusually-shaped trees, as you can see below.
Thanks to their highly unique formations, it was not hard for me to pinpoint the one featured in The Holiday.
The store’s large three-paned windows (denoted with Christmas tree arrows below) also match what appeared onscreen.
The windowed corner doorway from the Blockbuster in the movie also correlates to that of First National Bank, although it has been altered slightly in order to make room for the addition of an ATM vestibule.
In The Holiday, Blockbuster is where Iris Simpkins (Kate Winslet) and Miles (Jack Black) shop for the next videos on their friend Arthur Abbot’s (Eli Wallach) list of movies featuring strong, gumption-filled female characters. It’s funny to think about the fact that if the movie was being filmed today, only eight years after it was actually shot, this scene would be an impossibility considering the fact that video stores simply do not exist anymore – at least not in the L.A. area. (Outside of Vidiots, that is.) If The Holiday was shot today, Miles and Iris would instead have to peruse titles at a Redbox kiosk inside of a grocery store or online via the Netflix catalog, neither of which would have made for a very compelling scene.
In the scene, Miles, a film scorer, walks around Blockbuster picking up various DVD titles and humming their theme songs loudly to Iris. He happens to pick up The Graduate at one point and sings Simon & Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson,” at which time the camera pans over to reveal Dustin Hoffman perusing titles in a different part of the store. Hoffman shakes his head and says, “Can’t go anywhere!” Amazingly, that bit was not planned. According to director Nancy Meyer’s DVD commentary, Dustin happened to be eating next door to the Brentwood Blockbuster at the time the scene was being filmed. Upon leaving the restaurant, he noticed the film trucks and popped in to see what was being shot. He knew Nancy and decided to hang out for a bit to watch. When The Graduate portion of the scene was being filmed (the scene had been included in the original script and was not simply added because Hoffman was randomly on set), Dustin asked if he could make a cameo and Nancy, of course, said yes. He then adlibbed the “Can’t go anywhere!” line. Such a great story behind what turned out to be one of the movie’s funniest moments.
You can watch Dustin’s cameo by clicking below.
While doing research for today’s post, I learned that the same retail complex that formerly housed the Blockbuster from The Holiday also once housed the infamous Mezzaluna restaurant, where Nicole Brown Simpson ate dinner the night of her murder and where Ronald Goldman worked as a waiter. Today, that portion of the property is home to a Peet’s Coffee & Tea outpost. You can check out a photo of what it looked like when Mezzaluna was still in operation here.
On a side-note – The Grim Cheaper and I have recently become obsessed with the new podcast Serial. We are currently in the midst of listening to Episode 6: The Case Against Adnan Syed, so, please, no spoilers from those who have finished the series! Sarah Koenig, the podcast’s host, reminds me quite a bit of myself when it comes to doing research. Her investigation into the existence of a payphone at the Security Boulevard Best Buy in Baltimore, Maryland was exactly on par with many of the location hunts I have been a part of over the years. Speaking of the payphone mystery, I am absolutely fascinated by it! It is the one detail of the story that remains constantly stuck in my head and I am convinced that my friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, and I could get to the bottom of the whole thing and prove once and for all whether or not the Best Buy in question ever had a payphone on the premises. Are you listening, Owen? Let’s get on this!
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The Blockbuster Video from The Holiday was formerly located at 11770 San Vicente Boulevard in Brentwood. Today, the site houses a branch of First Republic Bank. Pete’s Coffee & Tea, the former site of Mezzaluna restaurant, is located at the opposite end of the same shopping complex at 11750 San Vicente.
I typically cover only one location each day on my blog, but today I’m giving you ten! Head on over to Discover Los Angeles to check out my latest article about holiday movie and television locations. Enjoy!
Be sure to read today’s Los Angeles magazine post – about numerous locations from Paul Thomas Anderson movies. My articles typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.
My good friend Lavonna is all about Christmas. So when she came out to SoCal for a visit, along with Kim, Melissa and Maria, last month, she had a few suggestions of holiday-themed locations for me to stalk. One of the locales was the former Hancock Park home of Nat King Cole, the African American crooner who was the very first artist to record Bob Wells and Mel Tormé’s immensely popular carol “The Christmas Song” in 1946. So we ran right over to stalk the place on the ladies’ last day in L.A.
[ad]
Cole and his wife, Maria, purchased the sprawling 6,831-square-foot home in 1948. Reports vary as to what the couple paid for the property – some say $65,000, others say $75,000, and still others claim $85,000. Whatever the case, the Coles’ new neighbors were not happy about the sale. The Hancock Park Property Owners Association even stepped in, at one point offering Nat $25,000 plus the purchase price of the residence to walk away from the deal. Nat declined, causing one homeowner to approach the singer and inform him that he didn’t want “undesirables” living in the area. Cole responded, “Neither do I. If I see any, I’ll let you know.” Despite the opposition, Maria and Nat and their adopted daughter, Carole, moved into the Tudor-style residence on August 13th.
The massive 1924 property, which sits on a 0.7-acre corner plot of land, boasts five bedrooms, five baths, maids’ quarters, a library with a fireplace, a master suite with a fireplace, a tennis court, a guest house, a pool house, a pool and two patios.
In a May 2014 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Nat and Maria’s second oldest daughter, singer Natalie Cole, recounts growing up in the home as an idyllic experience. The holidays were an especially magical time. She says, “Christmas was a big holiday in our house. My dad was always home for the holiday and would have the fireplace going and music playing. We had a huge tree on the front lawn that must have been 40 feet tall. We’d decorate it and the lawn with lights and a Santa Claus that waved, and reindeer that rocked back and forth to simulate running.” You can see a photo of the Coles in front of the dwelling during the time that they lived there here. Today, much more foliage surrounds the property.
In 1951, federal agents seized the home from Nat for non-payment of $146,000 in back income taxes. He quickly paid the amount owed and reclaimed the property. The singer passed away in 1965, and Maria continued to live at the residence until 1972, at which time she sold it to a family friend and moved to the east coast. Of the home’s sale, Natalie says, “My sister and I were so upset. It was all we had left of our childhood and our dad. From time to time, I drive past the house today, but I’ve never stopped to surprise the owners with, ‘Hi, sorry to bother you. I used to live here.’ Seeing it is so bittersweet. From what I can tell, it’s still a beautiful home. Only black families have lived there since we left, and all have taken wonderful care of it. I would love to buy it someday. I’m curious to know what it’s even worth at this point.” Well, Natalie, here you go – according to Zillow, the pad is currently valued at a whopping $5,228,372!
You can watch a video of Nat King Cole singing “The Christmas Song” by clicking below. An interesting bit of holiday trivia for you – apparently Bob Wells and Mel Tormé had not set out to write a classic carol when penning “The Christmas Song.” Instead, during one particularly hot day in the summer of 1944, the two were simply trying to keep cool by jotting down terms having to do with cold weather. Forty-five minutes later and one of the most popular Christmas songs in history was born, boasting those classic lyrics we all know and love like “Jack Frost nipping at your nose.”
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.
Big THANK YOU to my good friend Lavonna for telling me about this location and suggesting that I blog it! 
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Nat King Cole’s former house is located at 401 South Muirfield Road in Hancock Park.
This past weekend, while wandering through my local Target with the Grim Cheaper, I happened to spot a DVD of fave movie The Holiday on sale for $3.99! When I saw that the special features included a commentary with director Nancy Meyers and a making-of featurette, I just about flipped my lid and immediately snapped the DVD up. (Though I have seen The Holiday more times than I can count, because I own it on iTunes, I had never seen any of the special features.) It was perfect timing, too, since I am now (finally) in the midst of writing my Christmas-themed posts. I had also just stalked The Grill on the Alley, which was featured in the flick, this past November while my friends Lavonna, Kim, Melissa and Maria were in town (that’s Melissa and Maria above), so I was most excited to listen to the commentary from that portion of the film.
[ad]
The Grill on the Alley was originally founded in January 1984 by a man named Bob Spivak. The food industry ran in Bob’s veins – his grandfather owned a Los Angeles ice cream/chocolate shop in the early 1900s and his father was the founder of the Redwood House, now known as the Redwood Bar & Grill, which was featured in Bridesmaids and which I blogged about here. In 1982, at the age of 39 and after a long tenure working in a grocery store and a short tenure owning a soup/salad restaurant, Bob found himself at a transition point in life. Recently divorced, without a job and living on his father’s couch, he decided he wanted to open an upscale steakhouse in Beverly Hills, one that offered fabulous customer service and no-nonsense food. He found financial backers fairly quickly and then secured a space to lease. The only problem with the 4,600-square-foot spot was that its main frontage was on an extremely traffic-y block of Wilshire Boulevard, on a stretch of street that did not allow parking until after 7 p.m. each day. (The Wilshire side of the building is pictured below.)
The location did have a rear entrance, though, reached via a side alley off of Dayton Way, which gave Bob an idea. In a February 2014 The Hollywood Reporter article, he explains, “I went to the building department and asked to place the entrance on the alley. They wouldn’t let me due to an ordinance against businesses opening onto an alley that they had in place. So I pulled maps and realized I had less than an inch of Dayton frontage and went to a hardware store, bought a mailbox and painted 9560 Dayton on it. Just made that address up. Then I went to the post office, mailed myself a letter, got it delivered and showed the canceled stamp to the building department. They approved it!”
That “less than an inch of Dayton frontage” is denoted with red arrows below. What a great story!
Thanks to its proximity to the headquarters of the William Morris Talent Agency, The Grill soon became the place “to lunch” in Beverly Hills. Just a few of the power players and their clients who have been spotted dining there over the years include Michael Ovitz, Sumner Redstone, Rupert Murdoch, Ron Meyer (father of Jennifer Meyer), Tom Brokaw, Vin Scully, Steven Spielberg, Bruce Springsteen, Fred Astaire, Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Muhammad Ali, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Barbra Streisand, Johnny Carson, Katie Holmes, Sean Penn, Madonna, Drew Barrymore, Joel McHale, and Michael Douglas.
The Grill remains insanely popular to this day, over thirty years after its founding. In fact, the eatery has spawned six additional Grill on the Alley locations, as well as the casual dining chain The Daily Grill, of which there are currently 21 outposts.
While we were stalking the place, we had the pleasure of meeting The Grill’s longtime maître d’, Pamela Gonyea . . .
. . . as well as the restaurant’s wine education coordinator, Carmen Rupe, both of whom could NOT have been nicer. Bob maintains that The Grill’s customer service philosophy is, “The answer is yes – now what was the question.” And we were certainly given that treatment despite the fact that we were not even dining on the premises! Carmen and Pamela spent quite a bit of time answering all of our questions about the various filmings that have taken place there over the years and they also let us take all of the photographs of the place that we wanted. Carmen even led us over to the center of the dining room to show us exactly where The Holiday had been filmed!
In The Holiday, The Grill on the Alley is where Iris Simpkins (Kate Winslet) takes Arthur Abbott (Eli Wallach) for dinner shortly after meeting him. Before inviting him to dine with her, Iris asks Arthur if he is busy that evening, to which he gives his famous line, “Busy? Honey, I haven’t been busy since 1978.”
According to Nancy Meyers’ DVD commentary, The Grill on the Alley was chosen for the scene because it is a place that Arthur, a former Hollywood screenwriter, and his colleagues would have frequented in their day. Nancy had the two seated at a regular table in the center of the Grill’s dining room to show they are just regular people, not the “Hollywood elite.” Apparently the booths that line the perimeter of the restaurant are considered prime real estate in real life and where the show biz power players are usually seated.
I, of course, just had to pose for a picture in the same spot where the movie was filmed.
Carmen and Pamela also informed us that The Grill had been featured in the Season 5 episode of Entourage titled “Fantasy Island.”
In the episode, The Grill on the Alley was the spot where Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) discussed the upcoming movie Danger Beach with producer Carl Ertz (Kim Coates). Notice that Vincent and Carl were seated in a perimeter booth in the scene.
Pamela was even visible in the episode!
Pamela and Carmen also let us know that the Season 5 episode of The Hills titled “Keep Your Enemies Closer” had been shot at the restaurant. In the episode, The Grill was where Stephanie Pratt went on a date with a DJ named Robert.
On a side-note – I would like to wish a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY today to my dad, who, despite being chronically ill, always finds a way to regularly do special, extraordinary things for my mom, the GC and me. I love you so much! (That’s me and my dad pictured below during one of my very first trips to Disneyland.)
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The Grill on the Alley, from The Holiday, is located at 9560 Dayton Way in Beverly Hills. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.
It’s finally that time of year again, folks! Time for some Christmas-themed posts! And I could NOT be more excited. First up is a locale that I had been searching for for years – the sushi restaurant where Iris Simpkins (Kate Winslet) and Miles (Jack Black) dined towards the end of The Holiday. During my lengthy search for the eatery, I spent countless hours inputting terms like “sushi restaurant,” “The Holiday” and “filming” into Google, but always came up empty-handed. Then, this year, I decided to ask for some help and called in my friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, to see if he could work his magic in finding it. Sure enough, he did! After numerous Google inquiries using, as he stated, “Soooooooo many combinations and permutations” of terms, he sent an email to The Holiday’s production manager who got back to him right away and informed him that the restaurant was in Venice. Adding “Venice” to his search terms led him to a Yelp review of Chaya Venice, in which a patron named Hayley M. mentioned that the place had appeared in The Holiday. Yahoo! So I ran right on over there for lunch while I was in L.A. a couple of weeks ago.
[ad]
Chaya Venice was originally founded by the Tsunoda family in 1990. The Tsunodas’ tenure in the culinary field is an extensive one that has lasted almost forty decades. Yes, you read that right – forty decades! About 390 years ago, the family set up shop, so to speak, under a large tree in Hayama, Japan, where they served tea and snacks to travelers on horseback who happened to pass by. At some point thereafter, they opened an inn on the site, which was eventually transformed into a Japanese restaurant that they named “Hikage Chaya.” (Chaya means “teahouse” in Japanese.) It is still open today. A second restaurant, La Maree de Chaya, which served French food, soon followed.
In the 1980s, the Tsunodas migrated to the United States and, in 1984, opened Chaya Brasserie in Beverly Hills. It, too, is still in operation today. Sister restaurants, including Chaya Venice, soon began to pop up and there are currently four Chaya outposts located throughout California. The eateries, which serve French/Japanese cuisine, are headed by executive chef Shigefumi Tachibe, who just so happens to be the inventor of tuna tartare. He created the dish at Chaya Brasserie the same year that the eatery opened, after a patron requested an alternative to the steak tartare that was then being offered on the prix-fixe menu. The rest, as they say, is history.
I absolutely loved my experience at Chaya Venice! While I am not a fan of sushi (I do not like most fish), I opted for some veggie rolls and they were delish! The staff also could not have been nicer to me and answered all of my silly little questions about the filming of The Holiday. The atmosphere of the place is quite beautiful, too. It is not very hard to see why Chaya Venice wound up being featured on the silver screen.
I was particularly obsessed with the restaurant’s painted ceiling. Gorgeous!
In The Holiday, Chaya Venice was where Miles and Iris were eating lunch when Miles’ ex-girlfriend, Maggie (Shannyn Sossamon), called to tell him she wanted him back.
As you can see, the place looks much the same in person as it did onscreen.
“Accidental boob graze!”
The Holiday is not the only production to have been lensed at Chaya Venice. In the Season 5 episode of The Hills titled “Mess with Me, I Mess With You,” which was filmed in 2009, Stephanie Pratt and Audrina Patridge grabbed lunch at the eatery and discussed Kristin Cavallari and Justin Bobby’s burgeoning relationship.
And in the Season 5 episode of Californication titled “The Ride-Along,” which aired in 2012, Chaya Venice was where Richard Bates (Jason Beghe) got naked while standing on a sushi bar.
The entrance to Chaya Venice also appeared in the episode.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.
Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location! 
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Chaya Venice, from The Holiday, is located at 110 Navy Street in Venice. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.
Don’t forget to read today’s Los Angeles magazine post – about Ida’s Roadside Diner from Million Dollar Baby. My articles typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.
Once the pizza parlor from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off had been found, my friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, starting hunting for the home belonging to Sloane Peterson (Mia Sara) – one of the last unknown locations from the 1986 comedy. We had known for a while, thanks to a helpful crew member, that the residence was not in Chicago, where much of the movie was lensed, but Los Angeles. In looking for it, though, we always came up empty-handed. Then last week, fellow stalker Chas, of the It’sFilmedThere website, contacted a different crew member who informed him that the dwelling was located somewhere in Brentwood. Owen immediately started searching aerial views of the area and, voila, found the house fairly quickly. So I ran right out to stalk it while I was in L.A. last week. (I actually had to stalk it twice – the first time, it started pouring rain immediately after I showed up. That is why some of my pictures depict rainy weather, while in others the sun is shining.)
[ad]
As it turns out, Sloane’s house is famous in architectural circles due to the fact that it was designed by Paul Revere Williams, the prolific architect who also gave us Johnny Weissmuller’s former home, the McGinley Residence, Perino’s Restaurant, and the Just Married mansion. It was actually the first home that Williams ever designed in the Brentwood area. The property is known as the Preminger House in real life, in honor of one of its early inhabitants, film producer Ingwald “Ingo” Preminger. In later years, the American Colonial Revival-style pad was owned by another famous Hollywood producer, Harold Hecht.
In 1977, the Preminger House was purchased by Peter and Merle Mullin. The couple still own it to this day. Of possessing the residence for such a long period of time, Peter said in a 2012 article, “Every now and then, I think about leaving. Then I look around . . . and I can’t. I just love this place.” At some point in time, Peter and Merle hired Gary Drake of Drake Construction to do a renovation of the U-shaped dwelling, during which the central patio was enclosed with a large glass atrium. Drake also constructed a subterranean automobile museum to house Peter’s large collection of cars. The original garage was subsequently transformed into a guest home. You can see photographs of the Preminger House post-remodel here, here and here.
The Preminger House, which was originally built in 1925, currently boasts five bedrooms, six baths, 5,726 square feet of living space and 0.55 acres of land. Sadly, not much of the property is visible from the street, as you can see below.
The pad shows up twice in Ferris Bueller’s Day off. It first appears in the scene in which Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) and Sloane attempt to snap Cameron Frye (Alan Ruck) out of his stupor by taking him swimming. You can check out a photograph of what the Preminger House pool looks like today here. Thankfully, little of it has been changed since the movie was filmed almost thirty years ago.
In John Hughes’ DVD commentary of the movie, he says of the pool scene, “We never identified where this was or whose house this was. I always presumed it was just someone else’s house. It wasn’t really Sloane’s house, it certainly wasn’t Matthew’s house, and it wasn’t Cameron’s house. They just sort of stopped and used somebody’s Jacuzzi.” I was surprised to learn this bit of info as I had always been under the assumption that the pool scene was supposed to have taken place at Sloane’s residence. In hindsight, John’s explanation makes more sense, though, being that Sloane was wearing a negligee in the scene and later references having changed out of her clothes outside by the Jacuzzi. Had she been at her own house, she would have worn a bathing suit and changed within the confines of her bedroom.
In the screen captures below, you can also see that the trio’s clothes are scattered about near the pool, further alluding to the fact that they broke into a random house to swim. Had they been at Sloane’s place, they all would have been able to change inside.
Oddly, while Hughes did not intend for the pool scene to have taken place at Sloane’s pad, he did choose to use the Preminger House to stand in for Sloane’s residence at the end of the movie. The back side of the dwelling showed up in the scene in which Ferris dropped Sloane off at home and kissed her goodbye. You can see a photograph of what the rear side of the residence currently looks like here. Though the addition of the atrium altered the property, it still looks much the same today as it did onscreen in 1986.
In this photograph, you can see that the large tree and curved brickwork surrounding it that were visible behind Sloane and Ferris in the scene are still there today.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.
Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location! 
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The Preminger House, aka Sloane’s house from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, is located at 340 South Westgate Avenue in Brentwood.
Fellow stalker Chas, of the It’sFilmedThere website, recently texted me to let me know he had tracked down a location that I had been curious about for what seemed like forever – the pizza parlor from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Thanks to John Hughes’ DVD commentary of the flick, I knew that the restaurant was once in Brentwood and was no longer in operation, but I still desperately wanted to find its former location. So I was thrilled to receive Chas’ text and ran right out to stalk the site last week while I was in L.A.
[ad]
As it turns out, the pizzeria that made an appearance in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was Regular Jon’s, formerly located at 11645 San Vicente Boulevard. The eatery was originally founded by Jon Persoff in 1971 and was a Brentwood landmark for the twenty years that it was in operation. Sadly, when Persoff’s lease expired in 1991, the landlord raised his rent considerably causing Jon to close up shop, much to the chagrin of the restaurant’s many regulars. After Jon’s was shuttered, the space was completely gutted and turned into a Louise’s Trattoria. When Louise’s closed, Yuzu Sushi Roll House & Sake Bar moved in. Today, the site houses an organic eatery known as the Coral Tree Café. Unfortunately, it looks completely different in its current state than it did when Regular Jon’s was still in operation.
The good news is that Regular Jon’s has a sister location, which Chas also informed me of. When Persoff passed away on September 25th, 2010, a former regular and one-time employee named Steven Goldberg decided to make a pizza in the former Regular Jon’s-style in his honor. He spent weeks trying to replicate the thin crust recipe that generations of Brentwoodians had fallen in love with over four decades prior. He finally nailed it and posted a comment about his endeavor on his Facebook page. Soon friends were clamoring for him to make them a Regular Jon’s pizza and an idea took hold – Steve would establish his own replica pizzeria. He opened the new eatery, which he dubbed “Steve’s Un-Original Pizza,” in November 2013 inside of the MB2 Raceway at 1475 Lawrence Drive in Thousand Oaks. I ventured out to stalk the place last week and had the pleasure of meeting Steve. He could NOT have been nicer. In fact, when I showed up to the parlor, it was not yet open for the day. Figuring my chances were slim to none, but being that I had just driven an hour and a half, I decided to call the number on the website to ask if there was anyway I could come inside to snap some pics. And what do you know, he invited me right in!
Steve designed his pizzeria to be reminiscent of Regular Jon’s, with dark wood paneling and an old school brown and yellow menu board.
He also has numerous photographs of his yearly childhood birthday parties, which all took place at Regular Jon’s, as well as a panoramic screen capture from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off on display. I absolutely loved seeing it all! You can check out some more of Steve’s old photographs on his Facebook page here.
Steve answered all of my silly little questions about the filming of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and filled me in on Regular Jon’s history. While I was under the assumption that the Jon’s building had been torn down after the site closed in 1991, Steve informed me that was not the case. He said that the Jon’s property originally consisted of a thin, one-story, rectangular building with a large L-shaped parking lot. That original rendering is denoted with a pink arrow in the Historic Aerials image below.
In the early ‘80s, Jon expanded the eatery by adding a second, larger attached rectangular building that was constructed in the side portion of the parking lot. The two-part structure remains standing today, but due to the many changes in ownership and subsequent remodels, it, unfortunately, looks nothing like it did when Jon’s was in operation.
In Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Regular Jon’s is where principal Ed Rooney (Jeffrey Jones) goes in the hopes of catching Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) cutting school. While an exterior of the pizzeria is not shown in the movie, the spot where Rooney parks his car before heading inside Jon’s is actually located just outside of Chicago, where FBDO is set. Rooney parks where Chestnut Street intersects with Chestnut Court in Winnetka.
Quite a bit of Regular Jon’s is shown in the movie, including the order counter . . .
. . . and the eating area and small arcade –
– where Rooney has an unfortunate encounter with a straw full of soda. “Le jeux son faits!”
Regular Jon’s also appeared in a couple of other productions. In 1978, it was the spot where Cliff Barnes (Ken Kercheval) searched for clues while looking for Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy) in the Season 2 episode of Dallas titled “Kidnapped.”
That same year, the pizzeria was featured in the pilot episode of the television series The Paper Chase as the restaurant where Harvard Law School student James T. Hart (James Stephens) worked. For subsequent episodes of the series, a different location was used as James’ workplace.
You can watch all of The Paper Chase scenes shot at Regular Jon’s by clicking below.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Regular Jon’s, from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, was formerly located at 11645 San Vicente Boulevard in Brentwood. The space now houses the Coral Tree Café. Steve’s Un-Original Pizza can be found at 1475 Lawrence Drive, inside of the MB2 Raceway, in Thousand Oaks. You can visit Steve’s official website here.
