“Alice’s Restaurant” is (was) not the name of the restaurant. It’s just the name of the song. That’s why Arlo Guthrie called the song “Alice’s Restaurant”.
So what was the name of the restaurant. I vaguely recall reading it in a NYT article this summer, but I can’t for the life of me remember it now, nor can I seem to comb any information about the name from the web – other than the fact that it’s not “Alice’s Restaurant”.
It might be mentioned (or shown) in the movie, but I’m not dropping the $5 to rent it when I have the collected wisdom of the SDMB at my fingertips :D.
Where are you going that charges 5 to rent old movies? I need to know so I can stay far, far away. Most places these days charge .99-$2.50 or free with the rental of a new movie.
As for the restaurant…Alice owned it, but that’s all I know. I’ve never heard it called Mel’s Diner, where did you find that, sj2?
I also think it’s worth mentioning that I met Arlo a few months ago. Hell of a nice guy and a great storyteller.
Alice and her husband Ray also owned an old church, which is where they were gonna have Thanksgiving dinner, and Arlo and a friend hauled away a ton of garbage, but the dump was closed, so they ditched it down a hill, and they got arrested for littering, and…after a year, Alice ditched Ray and went to Puerto Rico.
These days it’s known as Theresa’s Stockbridge Cafe.
This from any of a number of newspapers using Lexis-Nexis.
Perhaps the answer is to be found in the twenty-seven 8x10 color glossy pictures, with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, explaining what each one was.
