The Trails Café from “The Catch”

Today’s locale required a ridiculous amount of stalking – of myself.  A few months back, while scanning through a television show making screen captures for a post, I spotted what I thought was the side of The Trails Café, one of my favorite L.A. eateries.  A quick look at Google Street View’s imagery of the restaurant confirmed my hunch.  Distracted by the piece I was writing, I failed to jot down the information, though, and promptly forgot about it.  Flash forward to last weekend when the Grim Cheaper and I found ourselves hungry during a stalking trip to Griffith Park.  I suggested we pop by The Trails and, while enjoying our scrumptious egg salad sandwich, was reminded of the place’s onscreen appearance.  The only trouble was I could not for the life of me recall what show I had seen it in.  Figuring it would come to me eventually, I snapped photos of The Trails and added it to my To-Blog List.  Days later, though, I was still at a loss.  The only remedy I could think of was a deep dive through my browser history.  That dive turned out to be far deeper than I had envisioned.  With the GC as my guide, I pulled up my search history, inputted “Trails Café” and quickly discerned that I made the discovery of the restaurant’s cameo on January 9th.  As I backtracked through all of the other queries I performed on that date, I felt like I was entering A Beautiful Mind territory.  I don’t normally consider myself as having ADD tendencies, but my online habits are evidence to the contrary.  At no time that day did I have less than ten windows open – often on multiple browsers.  Using the disjointed information to pinpoint what show The Trails had appeared in proved extremely time consuming (and a bit unnerving), but I eventually hit pay dirt – the eatery was featured in the pilot episode of The Catch, which I had discovered while making screen captures for my post on Emerson College Los Angeles.  Phew!

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The Trails Café was founded by Grammy-winning music producer Mickey Petralia and television executive Frank Lentz in June 2005.  The venture might seem an unusual one for two people with backgrounds so widely removed from the culinary world, but as Petralia told L.A. Weekly in a 2010 interview, “When I first started putting this place together, I code-named it ‘Operation Exit Strategy.’  The record industry had started to change, and I was pretty certain it was never going to get back to where it was.  It’s hard to sustain a house and two kids on music alone now.”

Situated just steps from the idyllic Ferndell Nature Center, another one of my favorite L.A. spots, the structure that now houses The Trails was originally a city-owned concession stand that served mediocre burgers.  By the time that Petralia and Lentz got their hands on the place, it had long been sitting vacant and boarded up and had grown run-down.

The duo spent about nine months cleaning up the property and transforming it into a charmingly rustic eatery, all of which was done during off time from their day jobs.

While the menu was originally helmed by musician Aaron Sperske, at some point pastry chef Jenny Park came on board as a co-owner and the mastermind behind The Trails’ delectable offerings including pastries, sandwiches and salads, all of which are made from scratch each day on the premises.

The tiny café (it measures less than 400 square feet!) quickly became an area staple, with hungry patrons flocking there like bees to honey.  Most days you’ll find the colorful picnic tables packed and throngs of people waiting at the order window.

It is not hard to see why The Trails is so beloved.  Not only is the fare amazing, but the setting is absolutely idyllic.  Sitting there, you half expect woodland fairies to come flying by, sprinkling pixie dust in their wake.

The restaurant is also something of a celebrity hot spot.  Such stars as Amanda Seyfried, Flea, Minka Kelly, Jessalyn Gilsig, Jayma Mays, Drew Barrymore, Alia Shawkat, and Paul Adelstein have all popped by for a bite to eat.  Mandy Moore even did a photo shoot at The Trails for How You Glow.

Considering its celebrity clientele and gorgeous aesthetic, it is no surprise that the eatery wound up onscreen.

In the pilot episode of The Catch, private investigator Alice Vaughan (Mireille Enos) discovers that her fiancé, Christopher Hall (Peter Krause), is a fraud who has made off with her entire life savings.  Her team decides to try to ensnare him, but, as her employee Danny Yoon (Jay Hayden) laments, “This guy was good – like really good.  His entire web presence is gone.  No archived search items, no photos.  I don’t even know how to start investigating.”  Alice assures him that she has photographs of Christopher, but when she heads to her computer to bring them up she realizes that his face is obscured or turned away from the camera in every single one.  Two of the pictures she scans through in the scene were taken at The Trails Café.  The restaurant’s appearance is fleeting at best in the segment, which is perhaps why I had such a hard time recalling it.

Alice and Christopher are sitting on the café’s southern side in the images, in the area pictured below.

The Trails Café was also featured in the Season 14 episode of Visiting . . . with Huell Howser titled “Ferndell,” which aired in 2006.

In the episode, which you can watch here, we are given a glimpse of what the eatery looked like when Petralia and Lentz first took it over in 2004.  The industrial shack is quite a stark contrast to the whimsical café that exists now.

Thanks to fellow stalker Justin, I learned that The Trails also appears as The Tummy Pleaser concession stand in the Season 1 episode of Salute Your Shorts titled “Cheeseburgers in Paradise,” which aired in 1991.

Quite an extensive scene was shot there affording us a fabulous look at the property in its original state.

I cannot say enough good things about The Trails Café.  There’s a reason I included the place in My Guide to L.A. – Coffee post.  It is definitely one of the best spots in the city to grab a latte and enjoy a shaded respite.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: The Trails Café, from the pilot episode of The Catch, is located at 2333 Fern Dell Drive in Griffith Park.  The entrance to Ferndell Nature Center, my favorite L.A. walking trail, can be found just south of the restaurant at the intersection of Fern Dell and Black Oak Drives.