Head over to Dirt to check out my latest post about David Wallace’s house from The Office, which just hit the market.
Toby’s House from “The Office”
Toby’s house from The Office just hit the market! You can read all about it in my latest post over at Dirt.
Michael’s Condo from “The Office”
Head over to Dirt to read all about the Reseda townhouse that played Michael Scott’s (Steve Carell) condo on The Office.
Scranton Business Park from “The Office”
Head on over to Dirt to check out my latest post about the two locations that served as Scranton Business Park on The Office.
Bistro Garden from “Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story”
The ‘80s were, without a doubt, garish, splashy, and over-the-top. But the second season of the true crime anthology series Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story, which covers the 1989 murders of Dan Broderick (Christian Slater) and his mistress-turned-wife, Linda Kolkena (Rachel Keller), at the hands of his first wife, Betty (Amanda Peet), sure makes the era look good! I am obsessed with Betty’s clothes – her oxford shirts, navy flats, ever-present gold chain, and, of course, that headscarf from episode 3’s beach scene! The locations are pretty chic, as well, none more so than the swanky restaurant Dan and Betty dine at in “Marriage Encounter,” which I recognized on sight as Bistro Garden. One of Studio City’s most oft-filmed spots, I stalked and blogged about the eatery way back in 2010 (hence the dated photo above), but figured it was time for a re-do.
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Bistro Garden was founded by Carolyn Pappas, daughter of famed restauranteur Kurt Niklas, and her husband, Gregory, in 1990. The establishment was an offshoot of Niklas’ two popular Beverly Hills eateries – The Bistro in Beverly Hills, which opened in 1963 at 246 North Canon Drive, and The Bistro Garden, which opened in 1979 just up the road at 176 North Canon. To distinguish the Studio City site from its similarly-named BH counterparts, it was originally given the name “The Bistro Garden at Coldwater.”
The stunning space, inspired by European winter gardens (aka large glass conservatories built to house tropical plants year-round), features two airy dining rooms, a handsome wood-paneled bar, thirty-foot ceilings, skylights, latticework, French doors, and trees strung with twinkle lights. It is easily one of Los Angeles’ most gorgeous restaurants.
Considering that little of the interior has been changed since its opening thirty years ago, the eatery’s use in Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story must have been a no-brainer!
In “Marriage Encounter,” Bistro Garden poses as the fancy La Jolla restaurant Dan and Betty begin frequenting after Dan finally lands a high-paying job at a law firm. It actually pops up three times in the episode, first in the scene in which Betty embarrasses Dan by mentioning to a friend they run into that they used to be on food stamps.
The couple dines there again later in the episode and Dan complains about having already grown bored with the place.
And finally, it is at Bistro Garden that Betty, after showing off her new Oscar de la Renta dress to friends at the bar, overhears Dan describing Linda to a co-worker as “just so beautiful.”
Dirty John is hardly Bistro Garden’s first onscreen foray.
Jerry (Cary Elwes) proposes to Audrey (Maura Tierney) there in the 1997 comedy Liar Liar.
That same year, Cooper Hargrove (Christopher Orr) presented Valerie Malone (Tiffani Thiessen) with a diamond necklace at Bistro Garden in the Season 8 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Toil and Trouble.”
The restaurant masks as New York’s Plaza Hotel, where Lexi Sterling (Jamie Luner) meets with three ex-fiancés of Ryan McBride (John Newton) in the Season 7 episode of Melrose Place titled “How Amanda Got Her Groove Back,” which aired in 1999.
Andy (Steve Carell) and his pals attend a speed-dating event there in the 2005 comedy The 40-Year-Old Virgin.
Bistro Garden portrays the country club where Gabrielle Solis (Eva Longoria) catches a news report that leads her to believe her husband, Carlos (Ricardo Chavira), has been killed in the Season 2 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Remember: Part 1,” which aired in 2006.
Gabrielle returns to the restaurant the following year in Season 3’s “Not While I’m Around” in order to meet her secret admirer, who turns out to be Zach Young (Cody Kasch).
In the Season 6 episode of The Office titled “Double Date,” which aired in 2009, Michael Scott (Steve Carell) takes his new girlfriend Helene Beesly (Linda Purl) to Bistro Garden to celebrate her birthday and then promptly dumps her upon learning her age.
Julia Fitzpatrick (Jennifer Garner) poses as a waitress there to get back at her boyfriend, Dr. Harrison Copeland (Patrick Dempsey), whom she has just discovered is married, in the 2010 romantic comedy Valentine’s Day.
And in the Season 1 episode of Why Women Kill titled “Positively Lethal in Every Way,” which aired in 2019, Simone Grove (Lucy Liu) celebrates her daughter’s engagement at Bistro Garden.
While IMDB claims that the second episode of the 1985 miniseries Hollywood Wives was lensed at the Studio City Bistro Garden, being that the restaurant did not open until 1990, we know that is not true. Filming actually took place at the Beverly Hills Bistro Garden. In fact, the BH outpost inspired Jackie Collins to write the novel on which the drama was based! Of the restaurant, which shuttered in 1996, Jackie is quoted as saying, “There’s a story at every table. It’s almost like Le Cirque in New York: a place to see and be seen, to get dressed up before you go, to wave across the room at your friends when you arrive.”
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine, and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Bistro Garden, from the “Marriage Encounter” episode of Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story, is located at 12950 Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.
The Best Buy Parking Lot Where Jim Proposed to Pam on “The Office”
Like much of the world, I have been re-watching The Office while quarantining. There’s nothing quite like the silly shenanigans of the Dunder Mifflin gang to provide laughs during a trying time. And it’s even inspired me to do some stalking! In viewing Season 5’s “Weight Loss: Part 2,” I realized I had never stalked the roadside service station where Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) finally proposed to Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer). As most fans know, the station was not real, but a set built specifically for the shoot in the rear parking lot of a Los Angeles Best Buy. Though several sources note the Best Buy as being in Los Feliz, I quickly discerned it was actually the outpost at 2909 Los Feliz Boulevard in Atwater Village. I headed out to stalk the lot shortly thereafter (donning a mask and gloves, of course!) and took photos of practically every square inch of it. Per co-executive producer Gene Stupinsky, even the hills in the background were digitally replaced with trees indigenous to the East Coast for the scene, so I did not have high hopes for being able to pinpoint exactly where the set stood. But then I received The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s: An Oral History by Andy Greene for my birthday last week and my prayers were answered! There in the image section of the book was a photo of the proposal set with a backdrop of mountains visible, allowing me to ID the spot where Jim got down on one knee! Though I only took one selfie during my stalk, it turned out to be in the perfect position! Talk about fortuitous!
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In “Weight Loss: Part 2,” Jim spontaneously IMs Pam, telling her to meet him “halfway” for lunch (Pam was attending art school in New York at the time) at “the rest stop where that soda exploded on me.” As soon as he arrives, he drops to one knee and proposes, saying he can’t wait any longer. Series creator Greg Daniels chose to shoot the romantic segment at such a mundane setting because, as noted in Greene’s book, “Momentous events can happen to us in a place that we least expect it.” Daniels was actually inspired by a real service station he patronized. In the book, producer Randy Cordray explains,“ What he had in mind was an actual rest stop that he and his family visit when they visit his in-laws in Connecticut. They would fly into LaGuardia and hop in their rental van and they would always stop at this one ExxonMobil station along the Merritt Parkway to use the bathroom and get a bite to eat and grab a drink.” 9/11, of all things, thwarted the show making use of the actual station thanks to a moratorium on filming the oil company implemented following the attacks. When a similar location could not be found anywhere on the West Coast, Daniels and Cordray sent production designer Michael Gallenberg on a mission to photograph and measure the Merritt Parkway site and then subsequently re-create it back in L.A.
I’m sure you can guess what’s coming next! As soon as I read that the famous gas station set was based upon a real locale, I, of course, set out to find it! It proved a bit tough being that all six Merritt Parkway rest stops bear a similar aesthetic and all were remodeled in 2012/2013. In doing some detective work via historic Google Street View imagery, though, I am fairly certain that the rest stop in question is the one located in Fairfield on the southbound side of the parkway.
Though it boasts a side wing that the set station did not have, the roofline, octagonal windows and front door positioning all match what appeared onscreen. Not to mention The Office station was named “Fairview”, which is very similar to Fairfield. Again, this is just a hunch, though. I reached out to Michael Gallenberg for confirmation, but unfortunately he does not have access to his office or his files right now due to COVID-19. He is going to get back to me as soon as that changes, though.
Once Gallenberg had his measurements in hand, the production team looked to where the set replica would be constructed. Building it on an actual highway was given a quick veto by the California Highway Patrol, so Michael instead zeroed in on the Best Buy parking lot. In The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s: An Oral History, Cordray says, “There’s five acres of black asphalt behind a Best Buy store in Glendale, California. It is completely barren, unstripped and unpainted.” And it is well-known to location managers, having appeared in the Shibuya Square race segment of 2006’s The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.
Using the below photo from Andy Greene’s book, I lined up the hills in the background and was able to determine that the gas station was constructed in the middle of the lot’s western edge.
The set was extensive! The mini-mart portion of it was actually just a façade with a scant eight-foot depth, the fridges and coolers visible behind Jim and Pam merely hi-res photographs. In front of the mart was an overhang canopying four pumps.
And in front of the pumps, a faux freeway was created! In Greene’s book Cordray says, “We built a four-lane freeway out in front and we used colored tape to mark the lanes. And we built a median strip with Astroturf and guardrail. This was designed in a giant dog bone shape so that cars and trucks could pass through the shot at fifty-five miles an hour, and then go way out into the distance, arc in a big circle and come back through the shot the other direction. I had thirty-five precision drivers.” The set also boasted extensive rigging to supply the rain the segment required. (That rigging is visible in the photo of the set from Andy Green’s book above.) Of it, Cordray states, “The nearest water was a fire department hydrant in front of Best Buy, which was several hundred yards away, so we had giant construction cranes holding up water tankers over the whole set so that we could rain [on] four lanes of freeway and the whole top of the gas station.” (As it turns out, my friend’s company, Underwood Water Trucks, was responsible for the rigging, which I was so thrilled to learn!) While it may sound like far too large an undertaking to take place in an electronics store parking lot, the Los Feliz Best Buy lot is quite possibly the biggest I have ever encountered!
Aerial views truly do not do it justice.
Neither do my photographs!
It.is.huge.
While the lot is situated behind Best Buy, I learned from Nick Carr, of Scouting New York, that it is actually owned by the adjacent New Life Vision Church.
A portion of it, though, appears to be utilized as parking for employees of the nearby Costco, so I am guessing it is partially leased out to the wholesale company. But, as my pictures attest, it was almost completely vacant when I stalked it mid-day on a weekday.
Amazingly, The Office gas station segment was pulled off in only nine days! It seems like a ridiculously short amount of time, but as Gallenberg told Andy Greene, “We had nine days to scout, design, build and shoot a rest stop with a four-lane parkway.” It’s pretty incredible – and was so well-executed that here I am, twelve years later, stalking and blogging about the vacant, wholly unrecognizable parking lot where it all occurred! Magic definitely happened on this site!
If you want to learn more about “Weight Loss: Part 2,” as well as other Office episodes, be sure to pick up a copy of Andy Greene’s book The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s: An Oral History! It is fabulous!
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine, and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The Best Buy parking lot where Jim proposed to Pam on the “Weight Loss: Part 2” episode of The Office is located at 2909 Los Feliz Boulevard in Atwater Village. The lot is situated directly behind and to the north of Best Buy. The exact spot where the rest stop set stood is denoted with a pink box below.
The SmokeHouse Restaurant from “Lucifer”
Hollywood loves a redux. So do I, apparently, because here I am yet again with yet another location re-do! (For those who missed it, I penned a second post on the Simpson family home from She’s Out of Control last week.) Today’s blog is actually my third go-around with this particular spot (you can read my first two blurbs on it here and here), but when I saw the legendary SmokeHouse restaurant pop up in a rather lengthy segment of the Season 3 episode of Lucifer titled “The Sinnerman” early last December, I knew I had to revisit the place once again. So here goes.
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Originally established in 1946, the SmokeHouse (which is also referred to as the “Smoke House”) is about as Old Hollywood as it gets!
The eatery, founded by Lockheed engineers Jim Stockton and Jack Monroe, was initially situated at the corner of North Pass Avenue and West Riverside Drive in Burbank. That location, a small 46-seat space, is pictured below via a still from a video made about the restaurant called Tales from the Smoke House.
The site, which became known for serving “fine food at a fair price,” proved so popular right out of the gate that a mere two years later Stockton and Monroe started looking for a larger venue. They found one just a half a mile south in the form of the Red Coach Inn, a 6,000-square-foot Tudor-style eatery that actor Danny Kaye had built in 1947, but never opened. The partners purchased the building in 1948 and it still serves as the home of the Smoke House today.
By 1955, the restaurant once again found itself bursting at the seams, so architect Wayne McAllister (of Bob’s Big Boy and George’s 50’s Diner fame) was hired to create a 12,000-square-foot expansion. Since that time, very little of the place has been altered. Stepping inside is like entering a portal that leads straight back to the heydays of Hollywood.
Inside, dark wood paneling, exposed brickwork, red leather booths, and dimly-lit sconces stretch as far as the eye can see.
As I said earlier, the SmokeHouse couldn’t be more Old Hollywood if it tried.
It is just the sort of spot I imagine Frank Sinatra dropping by for a martini after playing a set at the Hollywood Bowl – which isn’t actually a stretch. Old Blue Eyes was such a fan of the place that the restaurant named a dish after him! (If you would like to partake, Steak Sinatra features tender cuts of filet mignon sautéed with bell peppers, shallots, garlic, mushrooms, tomatoes and red wine, served over linguini.) Frank is hardly the SmokeHouse’s only celebrity patron, though. Thanks to its fabulous food and proximity to several studios, it quickly became a stomping ground for the Tinseltown elite. In Hollywood: The Movie Lover’s Guide, author Richard Alleman dubs the eatery the “unofficial commissary” of Warner Bros., which is situated right across the street. In its early days, luminaries such as Bob Hope, Lana Turner, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Errol Flynn, Milton Berle, Jack Paar, Walt Disney, James Dean, Burt Ives, Robert Redford, and Garry Marshall regularly stopped by.
In more recent years, such celebs as Britney Spears, Kevin Costner, Andy Garcia, Brad Pitt, Madonna, Taylor Swift, and Evan Handler have all been spotted at the SmokeHouse. During the ‘90s, the cast of Friends regularly dined on the premises on taping days. And George Clooney became such a fan of the place while shooting ER at the WB that he named his production company Smoke House Pictures in homage to the restaurant.
It is not just stars who love the place. Thanks to its old school aesthetic and Anywhere, U.S.A-appeal, location managers have flocked to the SmokeHouse over the years.
In the Season 1 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Move On,” which aired in 2005, the SmokeHouse masks as the karaoke restaurant where Julie Mayer’s (Andrew Bowen) birthday party is held.
Gil Grissom (William Peterson) and Jim Brass (Paul Guilfoyle) interrogate Lois O’Neill (Faye Dunaway) at the SmokeHouse in the Season 6 episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation titled “Kiss Kiss, Bye Bye,” which aired in 2006.
In the Season 5, 2008 episode of Entourage titled “Pie,” Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) meets his old friend Andrew Klein (Gary Cole) for lunch at the restaurant.
In one of its most notable roles, the SmokeHouse portrays the Niagara Falls hotel restaurant/bar where the Dunder Mifflin gang hangs out while in town for Jim Halpert (John Krasinksi) and Pam Beesly’s (Jenna Fischer) wedding in the Season 6 episodes of The Office titled “Niagara: Part 1” and “Niagara: Part 2,” which aired in 2009.
In “Niagara: Part 1,” the couple’s rehearsal dinner takes place in the SmokeHouse’s back room.
Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) and John Chambers (John Goodman) discuss making their fake movie over a meal at the SmokeHouse in the 2012 drama Argo.
The SmokeHouse’s interior appears as the inside of Lipton’s, the restaurant where Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) plays the piano at the beginning of 2016’s La La Land. (The exterior of Lipton’s can be found about four miles away in Hollywood – at 1648 Wilcox Avenue, to be exact.)
Chloe Decker (Lauren German) and Marcus Pierce (Tom Welling) finally capture the supposed Sinnerman killer during a sting operation at the SmokeHouse in the Season 3 episode of Lucifer titled “The Sinnerman.” For those who are unfamiliar with the series, I highly recommend a watch. The Grim Cheaper and I got majorly hooked on it from the start. Besides fabulous stories, witty writing and a stand-up cast, the police procedural boasts a highly unique lead character – the devil. Like the actual devil – Lucifer Morningstar (played perfectly by Tom Ellis), who, weary of his long banishment in hell, decides to head to L.A. for a little reprieve. He takes to the City of Angels and all of its hedonistic tendencies quite quickly and it isn’t long before he makes his stay permanent. Through a twist of fate, he begins helping the LAPD solve crimes, eventually taking a day job as a sort of police consultant. It is hilarious, completely irreverent, and hands-down one of the best shows on television right now.
In the most recent episode of All Rise titled “Dripsy,” Mark Callan (Wilson Bethel) witnesses his dad Vic’s (Tony Denison) arrest during what is supposed to be a reconcillation dinner at the SmokeHouse.
Though a few websites claim that the SmokeHouse portrays Joey’s Slammer, the Italian joint belonging to Joseph DiMinna (Michael Ansara), in the Season 2 episode of The Rockford Files titled “Joey Blue Eyes,” that information is incorrect. As a commenter named Brian clarified on the Rockford Files Filming Locations blog, the restaurant scenes were actually shot at Martoni Marquis, formerly located at 8240 Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. You can check out some great photos of the place when it was still in operation here.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The SmokeHouse, from “The Sinnerman” episode of Lucifer, is located at 4420 Lakeside Drive in Burbank. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.
The Los Angeles Marriott Burbank Airport Hotel from “The Office”
I typically have the memory of an elephant, but up until the Grim Cheaper and I recently started re-watching The Office over again from the beginning, I had honestly forgotten what a great show it is. I had also forgotten that several locations from it remain unknown and/or undocumented. One that I recognized immediately during our re-watch was the supposed Philadelphia hotel where Michael Scott (Steve Carell), Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson), and Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) stayed in Season 3’s “The Convention.”
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Filming of the episode actually took place a good 2,700 miles west of the City of Brotherly Love. In reality, Michael, Dwight, and Jim checked into the Los Angeles Marriott Burbank Airport Hotel, a spot I originally visited in November 2011 when I met up with my friends/fellow bloggers Ashley, from The Drewseum, and Katie, from Matthew Lillard Online and Rumble Fish Online, for the very first time.
Because that meet-up took place a good year or so after my initial viewing of “The Convention,” I did not recognize the hotel. But as soon as I saw it onscreen for the second time, realization immediately hit and I ran right out to re-stalk the place shortly thereafter.
Situated on 12 acres directly across the street from the Bob Hope Airport, the Los Angeles Marriott Burbank Airport Hotel boasts 488 rooms, 2 outdoor pools with cabanas and fire pits, a Jacuzzi, a fitness center, 45,000 square feet of meeting space, a coffee bar, and a business center.
The property also features two onsite restaurants, the Daily Grill and an outdoor lounge named E.D.B. – Eat, Drink, Be.
In “The Convention,” which aired in 2006, Michael, Dwight and Jim head to Philly to attend the Annual Northeastern Midmarket Office Supply Convention – or as Michael refers to it “a booze-fueled sex romp where anything goes.” The Marriott Burbank Airport was used extensively throughout the episode. Sadly, because the property has been remodeled twice since filming took place (first in 2008 and then again in 2015), it looks quite a bit different today than it did on The Office. It is still recognizable, though. Areas that were featured in the episode include the lobby;
the East Tower elevator bay;
the Convention Center (which you can see some photos of in my 2012 post about the Hollywood Show);
a couple of rooms;
a hallway;
the Daily Grill restaurant – which masked as the Scranton, Pennsylvania eatery where Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer) went on a double date with Kelly Kapoor (Mindy Kaling), Ryan Howard (B.J. Novak), and Kelly’s neighbor, Alan (Robert Bagnell);
and the exterior hallway leading from the lobby to the East Tower . . .
. . . which, while enclosed at the time of the filming, was opened up during the 2015 remodel.
The Marriott Burbank also portrays the Antelope Valley hotel Jen Harding (Christina Applegate) and Judy Hale (Linda Cardellini) pop into for a “shower pit stop” in the Season 2 episode of Dead to Me titled “Between You and Me.”
Their room, the presidential suite, was just a set, though, I believe.
Jen and Judy also party at the hotel’s Daily Grill, which poses as Whispers and Winks bar, in the episode.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The Los Angeles Marriott Burbank Airport Hotel, from “The Convention” episode of The Office, is located at 2500 North Hollywood Way in Burbank. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.
The L.A. Hotel Downtown from “How to Get Away with Murder”
UPDATE – This hotel is now known as “The L.A. Grand Hotel Downtown.”
Sometimes while viewing a television show or movie, I become absolutely transfixed by a location. So much so that I have to pause what I’m watching and track down the locale right then and there. It happens quite often actually – more often than I’d like to admit – and drives the Grim Cheaper up the wall. Such was the case with the hotel where Eve Rothlow (Famke Janssen) stayed while in town to help Annalise Keating (Viola Davis) in the Season 2 premiere of How to Get Away with Murder titled “It’s Time to Move On.”
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One look at the frosted glass art installation hanging above the check-in desk had me drooling and I immediately grabbed my laptop to begin tracking down the hotel.
Fortunately, it was an easy find. Thanks to the ultra-sleek décor, I knew that the hotel was either newly built or newly renovated, so I did a Google Images search using the terms “modern,” “new,” “hotel,” “renovation” and “Los Angeles,” and it was not long before I came across some pictures that matched what had appeared onscreen.
As it turns out, the “It’s Time to Move On” episode was filmed at The L.A. Hotel Downtown, an absolutely gorgeous property that did indeed recently undergo a massive renovation.
The 14-story hotel was originally constructed as a Sheraton Grande in 1983.
In December 1997, it was purchased by CapStar Hotel Company and was transformed into the Los Angeles Marriott Downtown.
The 2007 financial crisis hit the property hard, though, and it went into foreclosure in 2010. The site was subsequently purchased by Hong Kong-based real estate development company Shenzhen New World Group, who began a $25 million renovation of the place and renamed it The L.A. Hotel Downtown. Though it was originally set to operate under the Hyatt Regency brand when the renovations were complete, those plans fell through and today the hotel functions as an independent property.
You can check out some photos of the hotel during its time as a Marriott here, here, here, here, and here. It is absolutely fascinating to me to see how different the place looked then as compared to now. It’s virtually unrecognizable!
The L.A. Hotel Downtown currently boasts 400 guest rooms, 69 suites, 25,000 square feet of meeting and event space, 23 conference rooms, 2 ballrooms, a fitness center, a restaurant, a lounge, a business center, and an outdoor pool.
It is honestly one of the most gorgeous hotels I have ever laid eyes on.
And in person, the glass art installation did not disappoint!
It is literally stunning.
Hot to Get Away with Murder also made use of the hotel’s main entrance.
The property also masked as the Manhattan hotel where David Clarke (James Tupper) stayed in the Season 4 episode of Revenge titled “Repercussions” – which reminds me, I really need to watch the series’ final season!
For whatever reason, Revenge did not make use of the outside of The L.A. Hotel Downtown, but instead chose to film the exterior hotel scenes at the Westin Bonaventure.
In the recently-aired Season 5 episode of Major Crimes titled “Family Law,” the site masked as the Hotel Collage, where Mike Tao (Michael Paul Chan) went undercover to hire a prostitute while investigating the death of a divorce lawyer.
And in the Season 6 episode of Scandal titled “Buckle Up,” which aired in 2016, the L.A. Hotel Downtown portrayed the spot where warring presidential candidates Susan Ross (Artemis Pebdani) and Mellie Grant (Bellamy Young) stayed while campaigning in Los Angeles.
In the episode, Susan checked into one of the hotel’s Vista Suites . . .
. . . while Mellie stayed in the 932-square-foot, 2-level Grand Suite.
The property’s Presidential Suite was also used as Susan’s Florida hotel room in the episode.
Back in 1987, when the hotel was operating as the Sheraton Grande, it was featured in the made-for-television movie The Last Fling as one of the spots where Phillip Reed (John Ritter) tried to stop Gloria Franklin’s (Connie Sellecca) wedding.
The hotel’s Grand Suite was also used as the apartment of Joanne Preston (Shannon Tweed) in the movie.
The hotel played Atlantic City’s Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino where Robin Givens (Kristen Wilson) was interviewed about her relationship with Mike Tyson (Michael Jai White) in the 1995 biopic Tyson.
In the Season 3 episode of Melrose Place titled “Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Dinner at Eight,” which aired in 1995, the Sheraton Grande portrayed the New York hotel where Dr. Michael Mancini (Thomas Calabro) and Amanda Woodward (Heather Locklear) stayed while in the Big Apple to see a doctor.
The two shacked up in one of the hotel’s Vista Suites in the episode.
The following year, the Sheraton Grande popped up on Melrose Place once again, this time in the Season 4 episode “No Lifeguard on Duty” in which it masqueraded as The Beverly Hilton, where Brooke Armstrong (Kristin Davis) moved after separating from Billy Campbell (Andrew Shue).
The Sheraton Grande masked as the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, where the NFL Draft was held, in the 1996 romcom Jerry Maguire.
In 2003, when the hotel was operating as the Los Angeles Marriott Downtown, it popped up as the site of the Royalty Airlines job fair in the comedy View from the Top.
In 2005, it appeared in the Season 4 episode of Alias titled “Another Mister Sloane.”
A dangerous call girl picked up a client in the Marriott’s lobby in the Season 4 episode of Criminal Minds titled “Pleasure Is My Business,” which aired in 2009.
That same year it popped up as the New York hotel where Michael Scott (Steve Carell) and the gang attended a meeting in the Season 6 episode of The Office titled “Shareholder Meeting.”
The Presidential Suite was also utilized in the episode.
The hotel’s most famous appearance, though, has to be in Fatboy Slim’s 2001 “Weapon of Choice” music video, which starred a dancing Christopher Walken.
The video, which was shot over two days in December 2000 and went on to win a Grammy and six MTV Video Music awards, made extensive use of the hotel and gives a great view of what it looked like during its days as a Marriott.
Though the property looks vastly different today, fans of the video can take comfort in the fact that its set-up is still the same and that the escalators that Walken danced on remain intact.
You can watch the “Weapon of Choice” video by clicking below.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The L.A. Grand Hotel Downtown, from How to Get Away with Murder, is located at 333 South Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the property’s official website here.
Hamburger Hamlet from “Parks and Recreation”
Halfway through writing this post, I realized I probably should have saved it until February. At that point, though, it was too late to start over, so I figured c’est la vie. Here goes. A few years ago, when I first saw the “Galentine’s Day” episode of Parks and Recreation, I recognized the restaurant featured in it as the Hamburger Hamlet in Pasadena. I used to dine at the eatery fairly regularly when I lived in the area and immediately recalled its signature red leather seating, brick walling and dark wood accents while watching P&R. It was not until a couple of a months ago that I decided to do any research on the locale, though, and when I got to comparing images of it to screen captures from the episode, I realized that, while similar, quite a bit did not match up. I quickly surmised that “Galentine’s Day” had most likely been lensed at another of the Hamburger Hamlet chain’s many outposts and, sure enough, eventually discovered that filming had taken place at the Sherman Oaks location.
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The Hamburger Hamlet chain was established by actor Harry Lewis and his wife, Marilyn, in 1950. The first outpost stood on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Hilldale Avenue in West Hollywood and served comfort food and gourmet hamburgers. It was insanely popular from the get-go.
It was not long before HH outposts were cropping up all over Los Angeles, as well as in other states. In its heyday, 23 sister restaurants dotted the country. The L.A. locations were known as being celebrity hot spots, attracting such legendaries as Lucille Ball, Frank Sinatra, Diahann Carroll, Bette Davis, Danny Thomas, Mel Brooks, Warren Beatty, Ronald Reagan, Elizabeth Taylor, Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Curtis, Florence Henderson, Elton John, Betty White, Nancy Sinatra, and Dean Martin.
Harry and Marilyn sold the chain, as well as their Beverly Hills eatery Kate Mantilini, for a whopping $30 million in 1987. They later ended up buying Kate Mantilini back and subsequently opened up a sister location in Woodland Hills. Both were also insanely popular with celebrities (I once dined next to Reese Witherspoon at the Beverly Hills outpost) and non-celebrities alike, but have since, sadly, closed.
Recent years have not been kind to the Hamlet. Though the eateries were still bustling with business most days, news of closures popped up regularly. When the Pasadena outpost was shuttered in January 2014, the only HH left in the L.A. area was in Sherman Oaks. It, too, wound up closing in June of last year, but was, thankfully, acquired by Kevin Michaels and Brett Doherty, the restaurateurs behind Killer Shrimp in Marina del Rey – another popular filming location that I I blogged about here. The duo reopened the site, keeping many of the Hamlet’s menu staples intact, in September.
I have been a huge fan of the Hamlet ever since I first moved to Southern California and am happy to report that the re-opened Sherman Oaks location did not disappoint. As always, the food was great and the service friendly. Supposedly, the space will be undergoing a remodel at some point this year, though, so if you want to see it in its current state, I wouldn’t wait.
In the Season 2 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Galentine’s Day,” which aired in 2010, Hamburger Hamlet was where Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) took her girlfriends out for their annual Galentine’s Day breakfast. For those who did not watch P&R and are confused as to what exactly Galentine’s Day is, I’ll let Leslie explain – “Every February 13th, my lady friends and I leave our husbands and our boyfriends at home and we just come and kick it breakfast-style. Ladies celebrating ladies. It’s like Lilith Fair, minus the angst . . . plus frittatas.”
Leslie and the girls returned to the Hamlet in 2012 to film another Galentine’s Day breakfast scene for Season 4’s “Operation Ann.”
Oddly though, a different place – Villa restaurant from Must Love Dogs, which I blogged about here – was used for the establishing shot of the restaurant in the episode.
Fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, also informed me that the Sherman Oaks Hamburger Hamlet was used in the Season 8 episode of The Office titled “The List” as the spot where Robert California (James Spader) took a select few Dunder Mifflin employees for lunch.
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Stalk It: Hamburger Hamlet, aka the Galentine’s Day restaurant from Parks and Recreation, is located at 4419 Van Nuys Boulevard in Sherman Oaks. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.