Before working in production, I was the Assistant Manager of an art house movie theater responsible for building prints and running them to ensure their quality the night before the film opened. Occasionally staff would stay to watch, but the nights were usually empty. The biggest exception was Pulp Fiction, which had so much hype our late night screening for staff and friends was packed.
When I first moved to Los Angeles, I went through the phase of seeking out filming locations. I knew Jack Rabbit Slims was a set from Tarantino’s imagination, but there’s the diner that opens and closes the film. This information wasn’t as easy to find as it is now, but I finally learned the Hawthorne Grill was on 13763 S. Hawthorne Blvd. When I finally got there, the Hawthorne Grill was closed down.
I was too naive to realize at the time that the place wasn’t in business when Tarantino filmed there either. It was one of many locations around Los Angeles used primarily for filming. (The most famous of these is probably Johnie’s Coffee Shop on the Miracle Mile.) So in L.A., even real locations can be as fake as sets. A sad coda for the Hawthorne Grill is that Pulp Fiction made it so famous, it couldn’t be used again without reminding people of this film. In the late 1990s, it was demolished and replaced by an AutoZone.
