Mindy Kaling certainly has her finger on the pulse of the small screen! Following her nearly decade-long stint writing and acting on the hit NBC series “The Office,” the prolific Hollywood multi-hyphenate has parlayed her talents into a successful producing career, churning out such staples as “The Mindy Project” and “Never Have I Ever” for Fox/Hulu and Netflix, respectively. And now, the powerhouse’s latest offering, “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” which she co-created with “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” writer/producer Justin Noble, has hit HBO Max to rave reviews, leading to a prompt second-season renewal.
Set at Essex College in Vermont, the dramedy follows the scholastic trials and romantic tribulations of roommates Kimberly Finkle (Pauline Chalamet), Bela Malhotra (Amrit Kaur), Leighton Murray (Reneé Rapp) and Whitney Chase (Alyah Chanelle Scott) as they navigate their freshman year at the fictional Ivy League school. Though it’s drawing comparisons to HBO stalwart “Sex and the City,” “Sex Lives” leans far more heavily into the comedic side of things, despite digging into some decidedly serious subject matter, with all ten episodes of season one proving laugh-out-loud hilarious, not to mention thoroughly binge-able.
Filming of the series was an ambitious undertaking that took the cast and crew from the East Coast to the West, with the vast majority of exterior scenes captured at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. As reported by the Poughkeepsie Journal, the production utilized a plethora of locations at the grand campus, including “the main gate, athletic fields, the President’s House, the Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film, Rockefeller and Blodgett Halls, and several quads,” as well as the interior of the stunning Frederick Ferris Thompson Memorial Library.
Following the three-week shoot in Poughkeepsie, “Sex Lives” moved to Los Angeles, setting up shop at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, where the show’s elaborate sets, including the dining hall where the girls regularly congregate, were constructed. While in town, the series also made use of several real-life locales, including the Sheraton Universal Hotel, which was transformed into a bustling casino for episode one, “Welcome to Essex.” The girls host a fancy dinner for their parents at The Derby restaurant in Arcadia in episode six, “Parents Weekend.” And South Pasadena’s Torrance-Childs House pops up repeatedly in interior scenes involving the Catullan comedy club. (Exteriors were shot at Vassar’s President’s House.)
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Image Credit: Warner Bros. -
Image Credit: Lindsay Blake Aside from the girls’ dorm room (an improbably large two-bedroom space complete with a living area), the show’s most prominent location is easily Where Essex Sips, aka Sips, the campus café where Kimberly works part-time to put herself through school alongside fellow work-study students Lila (Ilia Isorelýs Paulino) and Canaan (Christopher Meyer).
In an atypical move, rather than utilize a set for the oft-filmed spot, the production regularly descends upon Kerckhoff Coffee House, a charming eatery located inside Kerckhoff Hall on the UCLA campus at 308 Westwood Plaza in Westwood. With its East Coast collegiate feel and Gothic architecture, the café’s aesthetic aligns seamlessly with the stately exteriors shot at Vassar.
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Image Credit: Lindsay Blake Both Kerckhoff Hall and Kerckhoff Coffee House were named in honor of William G. Kerckhoff, a prominent industrial executive who, before passing away in 1929, vowed to fund the construction of a student union at UCLA. His wife made his wish a reality by gifting $815,000 to the cause (the school’s largest single donation from an individual at the time) and in 1931, the gorgeous Tudor Gothic-style Kerckhoff Hall was completed.
At the structure’s dedication ceremony that January, then university president Robert Gordon Sproul told the 6,000 students and alumni in attendance, “This building is to unite us, to tie us, to rivet us, to weld us, to fuse us together. It is this building which shall shape us to sociability. In it, the university sets its common table; here is its hearth; here we are gathered for friendliness; here is the free give-and-take which shall unite us into a family.” Over 90 years after its inception, the hall is still doing just that, largely thanks to Kerckhoff Coffee House.
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Image Credit: Lindsay Blake The popular café can be found tucked inside the second floor of Kerckhoff Hall in a gorgeous 1,400-square-foot space lined on one side by stunning beveled glass windows that used to house a ticket office. According to the Associated Students Instagram account, the eatery, which has the distinction of being UCLA’s first coffee shop, was originally proposed in 1974 by student body president Lindsay Connor, though a 1998 Los Angeles Times article disputes that fact. Dave Nirenberg, then associate director of campus restaurants, told the paper, “Our food services director at the time, Rich Wheeler, had the vision to convert the place. He was way ahead of the trend.” Whatever the case may be, the idea proved solid gold. Kerckhoff quickly became one of the most popular hangouts on campus upon opening its doors in 1975 and it remains so today. In fact, it was ranked the best spot to grab coffee at UCLA earlier this year.
But the place is known for more than just espresso. Also on the menu are desserts, pastries and lunch items, including salads, sandwiches and soups. Renovated to the tune of $250,000 in 1995, the venue, which can accommodate up to 150 patrons, also regularly hosts events such as open mic nights, music shows and poetry readings.
And there’s good news for fans of “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” as you don’t have to be a UCLA student to visit the café. Kerckhoff is open to the public each Monday through Friday, allowing everyone the opportunity to have their very own Sips experience!
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Image Credit: Warner Bros. -
Image Credit: Lindsay Blake Kerckhoff Coffee House is a mainstay of “Sex Lives” season one storyline, with Kimberly shown not only regularly working there but hanging out with her roommates and getting tutored by her crush, Nico Murray (Gavin Leatherwood, who is not returning for season two), on the premises.
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Image Credit: Warner Bros. Only the interior of the coffee shop appears on the show. Exterior shots of Sips were captured on the Vassar campus at Gordon Commons, a Georgian-style building fashioned out of red brick by the McKim, Mead & White architecture firm in 1913. Initially serving as an auditorium/dance studio, the 28,000-square-foot space was thoroughly overhauled by LTL Architects (Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis) in 2017 and currently operates as a student dining hall.
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Image Credit: Dimension Films “The Sex Lives of College Girls” is not Kerckhoff’s only claim to fame. The coffee shop also famously appeared in the 1997 slasher flick “Scream 2.” It is there that film aficionado Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy) introduces Deputy Dewey Riley (David Arquette) to the rules that all successful horror sequels must abide by. For those not in the know, those rules are as follows: “Number 1 – The body count is always bigger. Number 2 – The death scenes are always much more elaborate – more blood, more gore, carnage candy! Your core audience just expects it. And Number 3 – If you want your sequel to become a franchise, never, ever, under any circumstances, assume the killer is dead.” (The third rule is only heard in full in the trailer.)
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Image Credit: Lionsgate And the site also served as the inspiration for the Ways & Beans coffee shop set (which only ever existed inside of a soundstage) on the third season of the Netflix series “Dear White People.”