I was watching an episode of the HBO series Hung today when another favorite location caught my eye — twice! Although the show is set in Detroit, the location crew used the famous Clifton’s Brookdale Cafeteria in downtown Los Angeles as the settings for two restaurants the show’s characters dined in. Both are featured in episode #5, titled Do It, Monkey.
The first restaurant is a plush red-wallpapered eatery that might look familiar to Mad Men fans — it’s the third floor of Clifton’s, which I wrote about last May. For Hung, the room was decorated pretty much the same way we saw it two years ago. While it was classed up a bit as Don Draper’s New York getaway, for the tacky fondue restaurant patronized by actors Jane Adams and Steve Hytner not much change was needed. Our photo of the dining room is here.
The second restaurant was used by a different set of Hung characters as the woodsy-themed buffet where a suddenly downsized Anne Heche and family must eat. This is the ground floor of Clifton’s, where most of the customers dine. In the top photo, they dressed up the wall behind the buffet line with knick-knacks. Other than that, the restaurant is basically untouched in all its kitschy glory. I love that you can see a bit of the ’50s era Specialties sign (better photo here). The wide view at the bottom is the main dining area, surrounded by painted murals, fake pine trees and a stuffed moose head. It’s wonderful! My photo of the area from a different angle is here.
