La La Land - Filming Locations: Bad Date Escape (restaurant)

Location #21:

The Bad Date Escape
(from a restaurant )

50:08: This is an upscale restaurant where Mia is on a date with her current boyfriend, Greg, and his brother, Josh. But as they drone on about business in their Brooks Bros suits, she is obviously bored, and she is thinking about the fact that she is missing out on the potential date she could have had with Sebastian (to go see the movie "Rebel without a Cause").

When she hears Sebastian's piano theme playing in the background (the same song he was playing at Lipton's, when she first met him), Mia makes up her mind, and abruptly heads for the exit.

We see her running past the front of the restaurant, now ecstatic that she has shaken off the tedium of her old boyfriend, and is jumping headlong into a new, more exciting romance…

And then, as she rounds the corner, we see her running down the middle of the street, in a hurry to get to the theatre in time to meet Sebastian.

Here is a YouTube video of that restaurant scene:

Q. Where was it really shot?

This scene was shot inside an actual restaurant here in Los Angeles,
and on the residential side street that runs next to it.

The restaurant is called Jar, and you'll find it at
8225 Beverly Blvd , in the Beverly Grove section of Los Angeles,
( at the northeast corner of Beverly Blvd & Harper Ave. )

It's about halfway between Farmers Market/The Grove
and the Beverly Center mall.

When Mia exits the restaurant, she first walks quickly west down the sidewalk on the north side of Beverly Blvd, in front of the restaurant, then turns right and breaks into a run as she heads north down the middle of N. Harper Avenue.

( Once again, they added those familiar blue lamp posts,
plus some sparkle lights to the trees, to create a more romantic ambiance. )

For the location hunters, the interior of Jar is easily recognized by the very large hanging lamps which, at first glance, almost look like round holes in the ceiling:

Here's a photo of Jar: Note that the bar area on the left side (of the photo below) perfectly matches the screencap above, where Mia exits the restaurant.

And once outside, we can see part of the large letter "J" (in the "Jar" sign),
as Mia runs west. past its south-facing brick wall:

Here's a matching StreetView:

And in the shot where she turns the corner and runs down the road, you can see the restaurant's awning (and its number. 8225) on Harper Ave:

Here's a matching StreetView of the street she runs down:

Jar is an elegant, dimly-lit restaurant with white tablecloths, classic American fare, and relatively high prices. (Critics rave about the butterscotch pudding.)

Jar bills itself as "A modern American chophouse".
Here's a quote from their website about their menu:

"Chef Suzanne Tracht’s familiar retro dishes from the American culinary repertoire, including her signature Pot Roast, Kansas City Steak, wild and sustainable Fish, Lemon Grass Chicken, Black Mussels with Lobster Bearnaise and Fennel Salt, award winning French Fries, market-fresh sides and perfect martinis."

This isn't Jar's first time before cameras. In the past, Jar has appeared in
"Ray Donovan", "Modern Family", and "I Love You, Man".

And more than a few Hollywood stars have been spotted dining at Jar,
including, most recently, Tom Hiddleston & Hugh Laurie.

Here is a link to a Google Earth 3-D view of the restaurant.

Move on to the next movie location seen in "La La Land".

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