Hollywood locals breathed a collective sigh of relief last week when news of the 101 Coffee Shop’s reopening hit Instagram. The beloved and oft-filmed café, most notable for its appearance in the 1996 indie hit “Swingers,” shut its doors in March 2020 as a result of the pandemic, along with countless other eateries across the globe. But while many of those have since re-opened, the 101’s doors remained locked, and at the start of 2021 owner Warner Ebbink released a statement saying, “The temporary closure of the 101 Coffee Shop has become permanent.” Not the New Year’s news its legions of regulars had been hoping for. So the recent announcement that Zack Hall would be re-branding the site as the Clark Street Diner was met with glee.
It’s not the first time a beloved café has been shuttered and reborn on the premises. The eatery, which sits just steps from the Hollywood Freeway at 6145 Franklin Ave., is located on the ground floor of the Best Western Plus Hollywood Hills Hotel, a mid-priced lodging that originally opened in 1927 as the Hollywood Franklin Hotel. Though reports vary, the restaurant space, which initially operated as a pharmacy, is said to have started slinging meals at some point in the 1930s. Everyone from James Dean to members of the Keystone Kops are reported to have eaten there.
By the ‘90s, the café, then known as the Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop, had become something of a dive. Enter Susan Fine Moore and her husband, Michael, who took over the space in 1994 and completely reinvigorated it. As she explained to the New York Times, before acquiring the restaurant, the fare had been “inedible, beyond crummy, embarrassing” and “half the time the lights weren’t even on. There were dead fake plants in the window.” Susan and Michael poured $50,000 into the place, breathing new life into both the décor and the menu. Though a classically-trained French chef, Moore instead chose to offer customers American comfort food staples, including her famous cowboy chili and coffee cooler (an espresso milkshake).
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Image Credit: Lindsay Blake Susan was also responsible for the now-famous “Last Cappuccino Before the 101” signage painted on the hotel’s eastern side, which still lures in droopy-eyed drivers to this day.
The rebranded Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop proved immediately popular with locals and tourists alike. Deeming it the “best place to eat” they’d “ever found in a Best Western,” food critics Meredith Brody and Bill Stern said in a 1996 piece for LA Weekly that the café was “the very model of a swell neighborhood restaurant that’s worth a trip out of yours.” The Tinseltown elite were also known to frequent the place with the likes of Brad Pitt, Sandra Bullock, Quentin Tarantino, Gary Oldman and Gwyneth Paltrow regularly popping in for a bite. The creators of “Everybody Loves Raymond” were also fans and famously penned the series’ pilot episode on the premises.
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Image Credit: Lindsay Blake Sadly, a hike in rent caused Michael and Susan to lose their lease in 2001. While they moved to a new location on Vermont Ave. in nearby Los Feliz, that site also soon shuttered. The former Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop space fared well, though. Following the Moores’ departure, it was taken over by architectural enthusiast Warner Ebbink and chef Brandon Boudet, who in turn began a heavy remodel and re-opened the restaurant later that year as the 101 Coffee Shop.
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Image Credit: 101 Coffee Shop Ebbink redesigned the eatery’s interior himself, outfitting it with “authentic retro-diner details” and Boudet elevated the menu by adding more upscale comfort food offerings. It soon proved just as popular as its predecessor. Though it remained a local staple for almost two full decades (a feat almost unheard of in the ever-changing landscape of L.A.), it could not withstand 2020, which along with the pandemic, also had Ebbink and Boudet facing a devastating rent hike. Ebbink told Los Angeles magazine, “COVID was the knockout punch; it wasn’t the main punch. Come June, I probably would have closed the doors anyway.”
Now Zack Hall, like Susan and Michael Moore and Ebbink and Boudet before him, is stepping in to reimagine the space once again, this time as the fifth outpost of his popular Clark Street chain. Doors are set to open in September. Don’t expect the same old standard fare, though. As Eater Los Angeles noted, while the menu will still be stocked with plenty of typical diner items, offerings will now also include “American breakfast staples done with organic ingredients and perhaps a bit more bread and pastry, though with fewer croissants and more pecan sticky buns, coffee cake, and housemade pies.”
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Image Credit: 101 Coffee Shop Fortunately, the familiar interior, which Hall dubbed “iconic,” is largely being left intact, which means the restaurant will likely continue its legacy as a big and small screen regular.
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Image Credit: Miramax -
Image Credit: Lindsay Blake “Swingers” famously made use of the place back when it was still the Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop. The eatery appeared in no less than four scenes in the movie, most notably the segment in which Trent (Vince Vaughn) stands on a table and delivers his famous “Our little baby’s all grownsed up!” speech, embarrassing his best friend, Mike (Jon Favreau). Sadly, the booth where the bit was shot was a casualty of the 2001 renovation and is no longer on site. Despite the extensive remodel, though, the restaurant’s basic layout is still the same, as is its retro aura. Lined with traditional leather booths and boasting colorful tiled walls and central counter seating, the space is still largely recognizable from its onscreen stint 25 years ago.
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Image Credit: Miramax It is also at the Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop that Trent incorrectly believes a woman is “playing fun little baby games” with him from a booth across the room in “Swingers’” closing scene.
The restaurant’s role in the movie came about quite naturally as Favreau and Vaughn were patrons long before filming took place and even worked on the script and held makeshift production meetings there. In the film’s DVD commentary, Vince says, “We would meet there all the time – like probably three or four times a week we would eat there. And we would go through all the scenarios of how we could possibly get it [“Swingers”] made.”
Of the eatery’s allure, Favreau told The New York Times, “It was like a family atmosphere. We didn’t have a lot of money, and I lived in a tiny apartment up the block. I loved the people who ran the place, who made you feel like a big shot, even if you weren’t. Very good portions – you never left hungry.”
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Image Credit: Paramount Pictures Studios Other productions to immortalize the restaurant onscreen include 1995’s “The Brady Bunch Movie,” which showcased the famous “Last Cappuccino Before the 101” signage in its opening montage.
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Image Credit: Warner Bros. Television Studios The eatery in its 101 Coffee Shop state appeared twice on “Entourage.” The boys first dine there in season one’s “Date Night” and discuss the upcoming opening night for Vincent Chase’s (Adrian Grenier) new movie “Head On.”
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Image Credit: Warner Bros. Television Studios Six years later, Turtle’s (Jerry Ferrara) company credit card gets denied at the restaurant in season seven’s “Buzzed.”
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Image Credit: Warner Bros. Television Studios The 101 plays Winkie’s, “a fine eatery just off I-85,” where Lorelai (Lauren Graham), Rory (Alexis Bledel) and Emily (Kelly Bishop) stop for sustenance while on a road trip in the season seven episode of “Gilmore Girls” titled “Gilmore Girls Only.”
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Image Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures Carter Webb (Adam Brody) frequents the place in the 2007 dramedy “In the Land of Women.”
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Image Credit: Sony Pictures Television And Judd Apatow and Jerry Seinfeld grab java – and a chocolate milkshake – there in the season eight episode of “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” titled “Escape from Syosset.” Upon arriving, Jerry says, “Did you ever just feel like you landed in heaven? We’re in heaven!” Fortunately, Angelinos are going to be able to experience that same feeling themselves once again soon thanks to Zack Hall!