User:AndreCarrotflower/Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee Tour

From Wikivoyage
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Metro New York

  • 1 Allendale Eats (now Allendale Corner Cafe), 101 W. Allendale Ave., Allendale, New Jersey, +1 201 825-0110. At Jerry's lunch with actor/director/comedian/author Chris Rock in the Season 2 finale, he was mostly content to listen and laugh along while Chris did the talking: recounting the story of hanging out with Prince and watching him make a surprisingly mundane phone call to his wife; breaking down the reasons why (contrary to popular opinion) Conan O'Brien was ultimately to blame for NBC's 10PM Jay Leno Show debacle in 2009; cracking Jerry up with his impression of Superman "losing the room" as a mediocre stand-up comic. If you're looking to pay the place a visit of your own, Allendale Eats closed in 2018... sort of. Occupying the location today you'll find the Allendale Corner Cafe, with the same staff (albeit different owners), the same old-school ambience (exposed brick, original tin ceilings, and warm hues make for cozy environs), and mostly the same menu, although they've diversified things up a bit with an extensive and creative selection of wrap sandwiches. Cute neighborhood, too, with a "small town Main Street" feel to match that of the restaurant itself.
  • 1 Baked by Melissa, 2325 Broadway, Manhattan (Upper West Side), +1 212 842-0220. In the Season 2 episode in which they both appeared, Jerry took French-based stand-up comic Gad Elmaleh out for fries at Pommes Frites on Second Avenue, baguettes at Balthazar in SoHo, and coffee at French Roast on Broadway. After all that, Gad understandably said he was stuffed — which Jerry apparently took as a challenge. If, like Gad, you find you've got just a little bit more room left, indulge your sweet tooth at this or any of the 13 other locations of this local chain of sweet shops where the specialty of the house is cupcakes — tiny ones, to be exact (though, it should be said, sold for prices more appropriate for full-sized).
  • 2 Balthazar Bakery, 80 Spring St., Manhattan (SoHo), +1 212 965-1785. "It's a beautiful day for a baguette", said Jerry to his guest, French stand-up extraordinaire Gad Elmaleh, on a memorable Season 2 episode — so to SoHo's Balthazar they headed for some bread to munch on whilst riding around Manhattan in their 1950 Citroën 2CV. Described by one reviewer as "equal parts perfect bistro and tourist trap", Balthazar is one of New York's most renowned venues for French cuisine and celebrity-spotting, not to mention the place where Jerry proposed to his now-wife Jessica in November 1999; head to the restaurant side of the operation if you're hungry for brasserie classics like steak frites, duck confit, or a renowned raw bar. But Balthazar also functions as a grab-and-go bakery, which is what Jerry and Gad patronized on their way to their coffee date. The baguettes are grand, but what you really want to opt for are the pastries, well-made and lacking the cloying sweetness you find in many American versions of French pastry.
  • 3 Bendix Diner, 464 Williams Ave., Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, +1 201 288-0143. A short and sweet menu of classic diner fare including old-school favorites like liverwurst that you don't see too often anymore; a salt-of-the-earth clientele of long-haul truckers and blue-collar neighborhood regulars; ample parking for all whether you're driving a 1966 Porsche 356SC cabriolet that used to be a Dutch police car or a more conventional vehicle; even down to the building itself, an old 1947 aluminum dining car with a big honking neon sign on top lighting up the night sky: if someone were to ask you to close your eyes and picture a roadside greasy spoon in New Jersey, the image you'd form in your mind is likely not far off from the reality of Bendix Diner. This is where Jerry and a rather taciturn Barry Marder (aka Ted L. Nancy, pseudonymous author of the Letters from a Nut series of books) convened over coffee in a Season 1 episode to discuss the importance of etiquette when dining with cannibals and speculate on the ill effects of competitive hot-dog eating on Takeru Kobayashi's lower digestive tract. Is it worth a visit? Possibly, if you're in the area already and/or that classic midcentury ambience is important to you. If not, best to restrain your expectations; consensus is the place has gone downhill since the death of its longtime owner, especially when it comes to cleanliness.
  • 4 Burger King, 385 Route 17 North, Mahwah, New Jersey, +1 201 529-8328. What's the point of driving an "eyebrow-freezing, retina-melting, absurdly gorgeous 1969 Lamborghini Miura P400S" if you're not going to take it up to ridiculous speeds on the highway? That was Jerry's thinking, anyway, on the trip home after his lunch with actor/director/comedian/author Chris Rock at Allendale Eats in the Season 2 finale, and what transpires after the two of them get pulled over by a New Jersey state trooper in front of the Route 17 outlet of this multinational fast-food giant is... actually a pretty damning indictment of how police in the U.S. apply the law differently to white people than African-Americans, and to celebrities different than ordinary folks. Jerry giggles his way through the entire interaction and ends up not only talking his way out of the speeding ticket, but also (according to a subsequent interview in Esquire magazine) being given a police escort to the state line, presumably so he could continue to indulge his lead foot without further inconvenience; meanwhile, a visibly nervous Chris talks about how he'd have been even more nervous had Jerry not been in the car with him. "Yeah, I'm famous... still black."
  • 5 City Island Diner, 304 City Island Ave., The Bronx, +1 718 885-0362. There are only ten tables at the cozy café where Ricky Gervais of The Office spends a Season 1 episode confessing to Jerry his growing annoyance with other people (when he's not continually ribbing him for his recklessness behind the wheel of the 1967 Austin-Healey 3000 convertible in which they arrived, or jokingly recounting the details of Hitler's "terrible honeymoon"), so the timing of your visit is key: avoid the perennially busy weekends, when Manhattanites and others flock to the quaint arts colony of City Island, with its small-town, straight-outta-Cape Cod feel, and instead visit on a midweek afternoon, when you can enjoy their renowned New England clam chowder without an ungodly wait beforehand and the personable service really shines through. Cash only, but there's an ATM onsite.
  • 1 Deluxe Luncheonette, 2896 Broadway, Manhattan (Morningside Heights). The unnamed-in-the-show "other place" where Jerry goes with Jason Alexander (in character as George Costanza from Seinfeld) during halftime of Super Bowl XLVIII in search of a tuna sandwich with cinnamon sprinkled on it ("Is cinnamon ever bad? Cinnamon enhances everything!"), only to resort to their usual haunt (Monk's Café aka Tom's Restaurant; see below) when they discover it's closed for the game. Once a classic New York greasy spoon serving burgers, club sandwiches, and all-day breakfast to hungry Columbia University students, it closed in 2016 and is now home to one of the five area locations of Junzi Kitchen — if you're more hungry for Northern Chinese chun bing savory pancakes than diner fare, stop on in.
  • 6 Fairway Market, 2131 Broadway, Manhattan (Upper West Side), +1 212 595-1888. Daily 24 hours. Actor/comedian/political activist/Jerry's fellow Massapequa native Alec Baldwin was the guest (and a cherry red 1970 Mercedes 280SL was the conveyance) for the Season 1 episode filmed at this ever-popular upscale organic grocery store, where the two old friends chatted about such wide-ranging topics as Jerry's stand-up roots at Catch a Rising Star and his ambivalence toward acting, how to build a better Oscars telecast, and the perils of mispronouncing the word "rapier". Many say the Fairway has gone downhill since the episode was filmed — prices have increased, corners have been cut on product quality, customer service is the pits, a 2019 renovation scrubbed the place of much of its "old New York" character — but reviews of the second-floor café where Jerry and Alec imbibed are markedly less scathing than for the market itself, so if you're just here for a coffee, take the foregoing with a grain of salt.
  • 7 Fort Defiance, 365 Van Brunt St., Brooklyn (Red Hook), +1 347 453-6672. Sad to say, but middle-aged stand-up veterans Jerry Seinfeld, Colin Quinn, and Mario Joyner stood out like sore thumbs amongst the crowd of hipster millennials in this epitome of the "new Brooklyn" that Quinn so loves to hate. If you saw the Season 1 episode where Jerry remarked how fatherhood keeps him from feeling ambivalent about the monotony of daily life, Colin lamented the end of the era of Waffle House cooks smoking on the job, and Mario shared a story about a beatdown on a crosstown bus that's too long and detailed to summarize here, you've probably got an accurate mental image of the kind of food and drink served at Fort Defiance (respectively, a small menu of dainty seasonal specialties and a drink list populated not only by coffee but also obscure craft beers and creative cocktails). Less well depicted in the episode is the historic character that shines through in the decor; it's housed in one of the oldest extant buildings in Red Hook.
  • 8 French Roast, 2340 Broadway, Manhattan (Upper West Side), +1 212 799-1533. Born and raised in Morocco but today based in Paris, Gad Elmaleh is widely credited with introducing his countrymen to the medium of stand-up comedy, and indeed his observational style has led him to be described as France's answer to Jerry Seinfeld. So who better to have as a guest on a Season 2 episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee where everything is French: the car a 1950 Citroën 2CV (which broke down repeatedly over the course of the show), the French fries (which, as Gad was all too quick to point out, are actually Belgian in origin) sourced from Pommes Frites on Second Avenue (see below), the baguettes from Balthazar in SoHo (see above), and the coffee date itself taking place at this charming bistro on Broadway and 85th. The food here may not be the most authentic Gallic cuisine New York has to offer (the "French onion soup burger", while delicious, is nothing you'd ever find on the continent), but the authenticity of Gad's ruminations of the French take on American culture is not in question: from the perplexing behavior of fans in baseball stands to the "elevator face" to the differences in the ways we hold our coffee cups.
  • 9 The Green Granary, 84 Railroad St., New Milford, Connecticut, +1 860 799-7405. The word "green" is no misnomer in the name of the place where Jerry and late-night talk show legend David Letterman lunched in Season 2, where the topic of conversation was the long and eventful arc of the latter's career: from his 1970s-era roots in stand-up (including stories about bombing onstage as Leslie Uggams' opener at a no-name club in Denver, and bearing witness to Lenny Schultz's magnificently oddball act at The Comedy Store in Los Angeles, involving the whipping of a crying baby doll) to memorable moments from his television career (such as the punchline he ad libbed for the question of if he'd ever "had the hump of a camel", asked of him by Chinese gourmand Yue-Sai Kan on a 1987 episode of Late Night). If you're vegetarian, vegan, gluten-sensitive, or just a plain-old health food nut, this is the stop on the itinerary to anticipate with bated breath: among the Green Granary's reasonably-priced breakfast and lunch options are plenty of animal product-free selections (the veggie quesadilla comes recommended if that's your bag), but omnivores shouldn't feel left out in the cold, either, especially not in the face of the grandeur of their challah French toast. If you're just there for a beverage, as Jerry and Dave were, you could order coffee, but why not get into the green spirit with an organic vegetable smoothie?.
  • 2 Pommes Frites, 123 Second Ave., Manhattan (East Village), +1 212 674-1234. Before their coffee soirée at French Roast on Broadway, Jerry and French-Moroccan comedian Gad Elmaleh stopped off for gourmet fries at this charming little "frite shoppe", the latter recalling his bemusement at the suggestion of a contractor working on his Los Angeles home that he install "French doors" (a thing that does not actually exist in France), and both reacting with mock-disgust at the size of a passerby's Starbucks frappuccino. If you're keen to try the sweet mango chutney that Gad so enjoyed (it's the bestseller among the place's roughly three dozen dipping sauces, and it really is magnificent), don't seek it out at the above-listed address — the Second Avenue brownstone that housed the original location depicted on Comedians in Cars was demolished in 2015 — but do head to Greenwich Village, where Pommes Frites continues in business at 128 MacDougal Street.
  • 2 Roebling Tea Room, 143 Roebling St., Brooklyn (Williamsburg). From outside, the Roebling Tea Room had the look of one of those "old New York" taverns that had soldiered on unchanged since time immemorial, but in that certain way that effectively telegraphed the vibe inside: Williamsburg to the hilt, but without that off-putting hipster elitism you hear about. High ceilings, vintage-inspired wallpaper in patterns that looked like they belonged on one of Cosmo Kramer's shirts, and huge windows bathing the space in natural light made for an appealing je ne sais quoi in which to imbibe your choice of a wide selection of coffees and teas or, if you had preferred, smartly mixed craft cocktails. Sadly, the end of the line for the venerable old place came in 2017, and the space remains vacant today. But if you take a peek through the windows and use your imagination, maybe you can almost see Jerry and Saturday Night Live alumnus-turned-late-night talk show host Seth Meyers laughing and chatting about such subjects as the terrifying minimalism of the stand-up format, Jerry's 2010 guest turn on the "Really!?!" segment of Weekend Update (a routine Jerry claims to have invented), and the joy Seth took at being insulted in person by Don Rickles during a chance meeting in a restaurant.
  • 3 Ron John's Pit Stop, 58 Padanaram Rd., Danbury, Connecticut. Thinking of stopping to refuel on your Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee-themed road trip at the service station/convenience store where Jerry bought two male stick figure window decals at the beginning of the Season 2 episode with David Letterman? After nearly three and a half decades in business, Ron John's closed its doors in 2014, but the building is still extant and is now part of the local Noble chain of gas stations. (And, for the record, the clerk who sold him the decals was wrong: the state of Connecticut did indeed recognize same-sex marriages at the time the show was filmed; in fact, they began doing so five years prior, in 2008.)
  • 10 Skylark Diner, 17 Wooding Ave., Edison, New Jersey, +1 732 777-7878. Wherein Jerry and Mystery Science Theater 3000's Joel Hodgson meet in Season 1 to discuss the purpose of nostalgia in life, the homogeneity of 21st-century car design (especially by comparison to the 1963 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia in which they arrived), and the genesis of — and problems inherent in — the new ketchup bottles with the cap on the bottom. The consummate '50s diner experience, featuring creative takes on all-American comfort food and retro-futuristic decor described by one reviewer as "a strangely appealing mashup of Grease, Goodfellas, and Pulp Fiction", Comedians in Cars wasn't the Skylark's first taste of the small screen: Guy Fieri and the Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives crew dropped by in 2007.
  • 11 Stew Leonard's, 99 Federal Rd., Danbury, Connecticut, +1 203 790-8030. The grocery store in whose parking lot the scene at the beginning of the Season 2 episode with David Letterman was filmed, in which bags of groceries spill out of the hatchback of Dave's 1995 Volvo 960 station wagon (which Jerry is borrowing as the show's featured car) when he guns the throttle of the high-performance Ford Mustang V8 racing engine it's been souped up with (by none other than legendary actor-turned-salad dressing magnate Paul Newman!)
  • 12 Taylor & Son True Value Hardware, 85 Railroad St., New Milford, Connecticut, +1 860 717-0591. Wherein Jerry and his Season 2 guest David Letterman wander to see if the place has the pleasant hardware-store odor they'd mused about over lunch at The Green Granary, and after confirming that it does, stick around to chat up surprised customers in the aisles. If for whatever reason you'd like to stock up on household tools, lawn and garden supplies, or the like during your Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee-related travels, stop in: customer service at this small-town mom-and-pop is second to none.

Southern California

  • 4 737 El Medio Avenue, Pacific Palisades. The house that Michael Richards mistook as belonging to Sugar Ray Leonard, to the confusion of its actual resident (actor/comedian/radio personality/Saturday Night Live alum Jay Mohr) when he and Jerry stopped by to say hello on the Season 1 episode with the rusty VW bus. The house remains privately owned (albeit no longer by Mohr) and is not open to the public.
  • 13 Corner of Deep Canyon Drive and Denbigh Drive, Los Angeles (Benedict Canyon). Where, mock-offended at Jerry's estimate of how much usable material their outing together would yield for the show, Bob Einstein — the actor-comedian behind the roles of Marty Funkhouser on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm and klutzy daredevil Super Dave Osborne — insists on being immediately let out of the 1970 Mercedes 300SEL 6.3 toward the beginning of the Season 1 episode where he features: "You think I'm going to a goddamn deli and talk to you for six hours and you're gonna use eight minutes?!"
  • 14 Factor's Famous Deli, 9420 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles (Pico-Robertson), +1 310 278-9175. When you're having lunch with comedy legend Don Rickles, where better to go than one of Southern California's foremost Jewish delis — and how better to get there than a mint green 1958 Cadillac Eldorado, a "mobile version of Las Vegas" in Jerry's words? Even a comedy heavyweight like Seinfeld, in that situation, could do little more than listen in rapt awe as the master held court, and if you saw the Season 2 episode where Don appeared, you remember that's pretty much how it went down as he reminisced about his long friendship with Bob Newhart and water-skiing on Lake Mead with Frank Sinatra at sunrise after a full night playing the lounges of the old Vegas strip, and recounted the perils of being an early-adopting pioneer in a genre as inherently confrontational as insult comedy. Factor's has been in business since 1948, but sadly, consensus is the experience has gone sharply downhill since Jerry and Don's visit: while it once held its own with competitors like Jerry's Deli and Nate 'n Al's, onetime regulars nowadays complain of jacked-up prices, slow and indifferent service, and pint-sized portions. Still, if you're not in a hurry and have money to burn, the food itself is as tasty as ever — especially the house specialty Reuben sandwich, made with hand-cut and house-smoked pastrami and delicious double-baked rye bread.
  • 15 Getty Villa, 17985 Pacific Coast Highway, Pacific Palisades, +1 310 440-7300. Renowned art museum whose destruction in a landslide was gleefully predicted to Jerry by Michael Richards whilst passing by on their way to Malibu Kitchen in a rusted-out, double-cab 1962 Volkswagen bus in a memorable Season 1 episode. If Classical antiquities are your bag, the Getty Villa has an impressive collection of ancient Greek, Roman and Etruscan items — check 'em out before they're all rubble at the bottom of the hill! Free, but timed-entry tickets must be reserved in advance. Getty Villa on Wikipedia
  • 16 Jerry's Famous Deli, 12655 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, +1 818 980-4245. Jerry's long history with this similarly-monikered New York-style Jewish deli (located a stone's throw from CBS Studios where Seinfeld was filmed, it was famous for hosting Friday evening soirées where the cast and crew would unwind after a week of shooting) continues into the Comedians in Cars realm: in their Season 1 visit, Jerry and Bob Einstein enter through the attached bowling alley before settling into a booth and reminiscing about the latter's long and multifaceted career, from its late-1960s beginnings on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour through Super Dave to his acclaimed turn as Marty Funkhouser on Curb Your Enthusiasm (apparently Jerry's hearty laugh at the dirty joke he told on their episode together was genuine) and as a producer (his surreal story about meeting with Redd Foxx to launch a variety special is really... something). For having a menu so interminably long, it's truly remarkable how consistently excellent Jerry's food is, but you sure do pay for the privilege: prices are stratospheric even by L.A.'s lofty standards. Jerry's Famous Deli on Wikipedia
  • 17 John O'Groats, 10516 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles (Rancho Park), +1 310 204-0692. If you find yourself overwhelmed by the length of the menu at the spot where Jerry and Larry David met for the show's very first episode to reminisce about their memories of working together on Seinfeld (as well as muse about why everything said while smoking a cigar sounds like sage advice, and expound on Larry's theory that his switch from coffee to herbal tea led to the breakup of his marriage), you might do what they did and opt for the pancakes (they serve about a dozen different varieties, everything from chocolate chip to mango macadamia nut), or you might indulge in the specialty of the house, the crunchy-on-the-outside, fluffy-on-the-inside, buttermilk "Biscuits from Heaven". But really, you can't go wrong no matter what you choose from the range of Southern-influenced comfort food they offer. Service is friendly as can be, too, which is all the more impressive given the crowds the place pulls in.
  • 5 K&C Donuts, 3500 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles (Silver Lake). After their lunch date at Millie's in the Season 2 premiere, Jerry and actress-comedienne Sarah Silverman take off in his "opalescent blue" 1969 Jaguar XK-E Series 2 convertible to marvel at the baked goods here — and buy some scratch-off lottery tickets while they're at it, which they struggle to comprehend. K&C was one of California's growing number of Cambodian-owned doughnut shops, and their 2016 closure was made all the more inexplicable by the fact that the reviews of their product (especially the noum kong) were uniformly superlative. Nonetheless, if you're a timid palate whose Asian culinary explorations go no further than Westernized Chinese food, you can stop by the same rather anonymous strip-mall location and tuck into a not-half-bad plate thereof at Fat Dragon.
  • 18 Malibu Kitchen & Gourmet Country Market, 3900 Cross Creek Rd., Suite 3, Malibu, +1 310 456-7845. Wherein, after an eventful drive in a rusted-out 1962 VW bus, Jerry's Seinfeld costar Michael Richards muses on the "universality" of the Kramer character and shares the story of being defeated in consecutive chess matches by a homeless man on Hollywood Boulevard, and Jerry reveals the inspiration for Kenny Bania's catchphrase ("It's gold, Jerry! Gold!") and helps his longtime friend come to terms with the fallout from the infamous "Laugh Factory incident" of 2006. Jerry and Michael just had coffee, but if you're hungry for something more substantial, check out the sandwich board, where the flavors of the owner's hometown of New York City predominate: grilled reuben on rye; nova lox with cream cheese on an H&H Bagel. Just don't catch them on a bad day: recent (2020) customer service horror stories are real eyebrow-raisers.
  • 19 Millie's Cafe, 3524 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles (Silver Lake), +1 323 664-0404. Had Jerry read the reviews of this place before taking actress-comedienne Sarah Silverman out to brunch there in the Season 2 premiere, he might not have felt so "out-ordered": portion sizes at Millie's are legendarily huge, especially by L.A. standards. If you liked the looks of the place where Sarah shared stories about her dad falling asleep in the audience at one of her early comedy shows and watching Woody Allen's movie Sleeper at the house of a family friend, and where Jerry mused about how the parallel popularity of the UFC and the Real Housewives series represents "the worst aspects of each gender exaggerated to the maximum", you won't likely be disappointed sampling the real thing — and that goes double if you appreciate a Mexican bent to your all-American diner fare; chilaquiles, machaca, and huevos rancheros are all hot sellers. And if, like Jerry, you fear "hipster service" at a trendy place like this, don't: these folks really put their heart into making sure every customer leaves happy.
  • 20 Nate 'n Al's, 414 N. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills, +1 310 274-0101. Where Jerry takes his lime green 1970 Porsche 911S to pick up provisions for the dinner invitation of a lifetime: at Carl Reiner's house, where fellow attendee Mel Brooks regales all present with stories about rewatching the Get Smart pilot with Buck Henry, the making of Blazing Saddles, his friendship with Richard Pryor, and how he intended The Producers as "a profound [act of vengeance] against Hitler's crimes". Later that same season, Jerry took actor-comedian Bob Einstein there for a second lunch to repay him for chipping in $50 to pay the bill at Jerry's Famous Deli since Jerry was short of cash in his wallet. A beloved neighborhood landmark with a star-studded clientele, Nate 'n Al's is the Jewish deli par excellence: you can pick up sliced cold cuts to go, as Jerry did before visiting Carl, or else drink in the delightfully dated ambience from a counter seat alongside the crotchety old curmudgeons that make up their regular clientele, as in his lunch with Bob; either way, it's a grand experience. Nate 'n Al of Beverly Hills on Wikipedia
  • 21 Norm's, 470 N. La Cienega Blvd., West Hollywood, +1 310 657-8333. Site of Jerry's Season 1 breakfast date with comedy legend Carl Reiner (who likes his bacon very crisp), where the latter discusses the origin of his famous "2,000 Year Old Man" bit and his weekly get-togethers with Mel Brooks. The flagship of a storied Southern California all-night coffeeshop chain that's now 19 locations strong, Norm's is famous not only for all-American diner fare served in generous portions for decent prices, but also among architecture buffs: the location where Jerry and Carl dined was named a historic landmark in 2015 and is regarded as one of America's best-preserved examples of the retro-futuristic "Googie" style. Norms Restaurants on Wikipedia
  • 22 Rae's Restaurant, 2901 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, +1 310 828-7937. Where, after a brief stopover at Will Rogers State Beach in a 1970 Dodge Challenger T/A, Jerry and fellow stand-up Brian Regan continued their Season 1 conversation, touching on such wide-ranging subjects as why no one orders Danish anymore, the deeper meaning behind the presence of chairs at department-store cosmetics counters, and whether Queen Elizabeth has ever had to "jiggle the handle". If you're following in their footsteps, be prepared for an experience that's thoroughly old-school: the menu, the decor, the prices, the friendly service, the lack of any official website or social media presence, and the cash-only payment policy all seem stuck in 1958, the year they opened for business.
  • 6 Villa Bella, 10066 Cielo Drive, Los Angeles (Benedict Canyon). While tooling along in a 1970 Mercedes 300SEL 6.3 in his Season 1 appearance, actor-comedian Bob Einstein points out to Jerry a "house up there" that's "on the property where [Charles] Manson killed [Sharon] Tate and all those people". The infamous rental house where said murders took place was demolished in 1994; its replacement, built two years later, is a luxurious Mediterranean Revival-style mansion that counts nine bedrooms, 13 bathrooms, a screening room, a wine cellar, a commercial kitchen, a 15-car underground garage, six bars, five aquariums, two tropical-themed swimming pools with a 35-foot slide, a private collection of Elvis memorabilia, and — by the understandable intent of the architect — absolutely nothing that's reminiscent of its predecessor. Einstein cracks Jerry up with his impression of a realtor evasively brushing off a prospective buyer's questions about the property's history, but its real-life owner — Jeff Franklin, creator of the megapopular ABC-TV sitcom Full House — waxed rhapsodic to Architectural Digest magazine in 2010 about how he "fell in love with... the setting, the view, the privacy" of his hilltop estate. It's almost needless to say that the house isn't open to the public, but you can get a decent enough view of it in the distance while heading northwest on Benedict Canyon Drive between Delresto Drive and Beverly Estate Drive, as Jerry and Bob did.
  • 23 Will Rogers State Beach, 17000 Pacific Coast Highway, Pacific Palisades, +1 424 526-7777. The roadside stopover on the way to Rae's Restaurant where Jerry and fellow stand-up Brian Regan thrill at the sight of a seal playing in the water. (Fun fact: speaking of aquatic mammals, this is also the place where "marine biologist" George Costanza's daring rescue of a beached whale, one of Seinfeld's most iconic scenes, was filmed.) Will Rogers State Beach (Q8003058) on Wikidata Will Rogers State Beach on Wikipedia