I love going to weird and classic restaurants. It’s even better if it’s been on a travelogue type TV show. I’ll expand this category to movies and regular TV shows because I’'ve noticed that well, I haven’t really been to that many mentioned on food shows.
I’ve been to Patrick’s Roadhouse on PCH in Pacific Palisades. It was on Diners, Drive-ins or Dives. I had the Governator, a gigantic mess of eggs with everything but the kitchen sink thrown in. It was specially requested by Arnold and was modeled on what his mom back in Austria used to make. Delicious!
The Whoa Nellie Deli was mentioned on a Huell Howser travelogue. It’s in a gas station near Mono Lake and has the best food you will ever have in a gas station. Try the fish tacos! They have a full blown trapeze outside.
I’ve been to Katz’s Delicatessen where the famous scene from When Harry Met Sally was filmed.
Tonight, on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives a hamburger joint called Bobo’s will be featured. It’s in my hometown and I’ve eaten there several times. Good burgers, great fries.
I’ve eaten at Tom’s Diner (exteriors were used in Seinfeld) once or twice.
I’ve been in Katz’s Delicatessen, but I didn’t have any food. If I wasn’t a vegetarian I’d probably eat there constantly, but I’ll get around to it.
I’m sure someone has eaten at the Algonquin in a movie, but I don’t know the movie. I’ve had lunch there twice: once Eve and more recently with my girlfriend.
I live in Los Angeles. It’s hard to patronize a restaurant that hasn’t been featured on film. Curiously, however, many “restaurants” shown on television are not actual restaurants, but are other types of businesses dressed up to look like a restaurant (probably because it is too difficult to find a restaurant that will allow filming on the schedule required by the film.)
A few notables:[ul][li]Kate Mantilini (site of the DeNiro/Pacino face-off in Heat , hip clientèle, crappy food)[]Broadway Deli on the Third Street Prominade (also seen in Heat)[]Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop (featured in Swingers)[]Brite Spot Diner in Silver Lake (a bunch of t.v. shows for time immemorial)[]Hitching Post II (Sideways)[/ul][/li]
Stranger
More than just the exteriors on Seinfeld, Tom’s Diner was also the subject of a song by Suzanne Vega. When I was there, there were tons of Seinfeldanalia, but only one reference to Vega that I could find.
Although I haven’t seen it, the Algonquin probably played some part in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle. I’ve stayed there, too, once during a dopefest a few years back.
I’ve also eaten at Mystic Pizza.
And there’s Bartley’s Burger Cottage, which was on one of those Rachel-Ray-devours-a-city-for-twenty-bucks-and-everything’s-“delish” shows. I love that place; decent burgers and fantastic atmosphere. It’s like P.J. O’Rourke’s dorm room exploded.
Well Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle was shot at the Algonquin. I can’t remember if they were at the restaurant, but they sure were drinking a lot. IMDB shows 4 movies shot there.
Because I’ve been to two featured on Splendid Table.
Simon Pearce Restaurant and Glass Blowing Center in Queechee, Vermont. It’s a nifty place. Elegant food, but not to fussy about tourists passing through. Definitely the type of place you go for the experience, not just to fill your stomach. I was unaware at the time that we ate there by intent. (In other words, I was with family who had investigated whether there were interesting places, such as any visited by Jane and Michael Stern, in a reasonable driving distance from where we were staying.)
Similar, but slightly smaller, group of us visited the Dutch Kitchen Restaurant in Frackville, Pennsylvania. It was an interesting place, but circumstances conspired to make eating interesting food less appealing. (Too much traveling in one day makes me want something quick, light, and non-threatening. ) We didn’t know we were going to be eating at a place reviewed by the Sterns until we entered the restaurant. Still, it would be a fine place to eat comfort food Pennsylvania Dutch style, if not as destination-y as the other.
(Incidentally, I looked up both these places on the Splendid Table website. I would not have remembered the names otherwise).
I’ve been there, been to Tom’s Restaurant (Seinfeld), Katz’s. I’ve probably been to quite a few places featured on travelogues, like the Anchor Bar in New York, Zingermann’s in Ann Arbor, Pat’s King of Steaks in Philadelphia, any of a number of places here in the Chicago area (I’ve been to many of the restaurants featured in a local TV show called Check Please, including being a guest reviewer on the show once. Plus anytime a travel show zips through town, you can expect one of the following places mentioned: The Billy Goat Tavern, Wiener Circle, Uno’s, Malnati’s, Al’s Beef, Hot Dougs, etc.)
Whenever I visit a new city, my general way of acquainting myself with the city and its people is through its food and its bars, so I end up at a lot of the sorts of places you’ll find in the travelogue shows–the more off the beaten path, the better, but I won’t snub places like Pat’s or the Anchor, since they are the birthplace of their local culinary traditions and give me a decent baseline to compare other places to.
I’ve been there too - and they even let me have a beer seeing as how I was well over 21 at the time.
And I’ve also been to The Tune Inn, Washington DC’s most famous dive bar. It’s been written about in magazines, mentioned in books, and the Cleveland Museum even has a painting of it somewhere …
I’ve been to Pat O’Brien’s in New Orleans (very touristy now), which claims to have invented the Hurricane cocktail and used to get mentioned a lot in travel pubs, and to Brennan’s, which is a world-famous French Creole place in the French Quarter.
It’s quite possibly the best burger place on the face of the planet.
Rachael Ray also visited Martha’s Vineyard and went to the Seafood Shanty in Edgartown. I eat there every year.
I’ve never been in Cafe Budapest, but saw the film crew when Housesitter was being filmed there. I also went on a date with the set decorator.
Years ago Folger’s had ads in which they replaced the coffee in fine restaurants with their product. One such restaurant was Maison Robert. That was one of the best places I’ve ever eaten.
This is a real stretch – went to lunch with friends to Trattoria Michelli in Seattle when they were filming a TV-movie with Jimmy Smits. The brave one in the group got his autograph (they were between scenes). He’s so gorgeous. Or he was in the mid-80’s.
I’ve been to a bunch of places mentioned here- Katz Deli, the Algonquin, the Bull & Finch in Boston, some others. Used to live across the street from Cammerari (sp?) Bakery in Brooklyn, were Moonstruck was filmed (OK, it’s not a restaurant). Eaten plenty of times at the Mayrose Diner in the Flatiron District, NYC (I’m embarrassed to admit that there’s a scene from *The Devil Wears Prada * in it; watched it this weekend- my wife’s turn to choose the movie); we live around the corner from Holsten’s (Tony Soprano: “Best onion rings in the state!”) and have eaten ice cream there many times.
I’ve eaten many times at the New York Deli on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall before it closed almost 10 years ago now. It was featured prominently in Mork and Mindy.
I’va also had drinks at the Terminal Bar that was in Denver’s Lower Downtown. It was named the Terminal because it was close to Union Station, but it was known locally as and end of the line bar, probably the last one you’d find yourself drinking in if you were a regular. It was the bar featured in Tom Waits’ Nighthawks at the Diner.
Maybe you’re standing on the corner of 17th and Wazee Streets, yeah
Out in front of the Terminal bar there’s a Thunderbird moving in muscatel sky
You’ve been drinking cleaning products all night
Open for suggestions
My wife was a sous-chef at the Russian Tea Room in NY, which appeared in any number of movies (*Tootsie * comes to mind). I ate there a few times myself - and I hung out in the service areas a whole lot more often, waiting for her to get off work.
I was once served a muffaletta that contained shards of glass (!) at The Old Alligator Grill in Austin, TX… which was “Chotchkie’s” in the movie Office Space.
*[SUB]“Oh my god, we have no idea how that got in there. I’ll take that off your bill. Do you want me to bring you another one?”
“Uh… NO.”[/SUB]
I’ve been to the coffee shop where Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan met in You’ve Got Mail. The name escapes me. I could look it up, but I’m really too damn lazy.
