Don Draper ate there -- and he had a lot of company.
The emotionally complicated advertising executive from AMC's series "Mad Men" was one of several film and TV characters who walked through the doors of Rod's Grill in Arcadia, Calif., which is now closing after 70 years.
Other fictional customers also patronized the famed eatery, which opened for business in 1957, the same year the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles.
Rod's Offered Meals with 'Friendly Service'
The guest list included characters from the 1997 film "Sprung," and the TV shows "Last Man Standing," "Judging Amy" and HBO's race track drama "Luck."
In the case of "Mad Men," Rod's interior served as a Howard Johnson's restaurant in Plattsburgh, NY, for the fifth season episode "Far Away Places", which first aired on April 22, 2012.
It's easy to see why filmmakers were drawn to the place, as the interior featured exposed brick walls, sea foam green channel-back booths and a long curving wood counter.
However, fans of Rod's Grill, both real and imaginary, received some bad news recently.
The "classic retro diner serving up great coffee, all-day breakfast, and delicious lunch and dinner dishes with friendly service," according to Rod's Instagram page, was closing.
"Some sad news today," one tweet read from Merch Motel. "Rod’s Grill in Arcadia is closing. I love that beautiful mid-century architecture and the touches of mid-century details all throughout the diner. This restaurant really is an authentic place of the past. Feels like a step back in time when you walk in."
Battered by Legal Battles and Covid
A Rod's menu from 1957 posted on Facebook lists the price of a hamburger combination as 85 cents, while the homemade chicken pie sells for 95 cents and the hamburger steak dinner costs $1.40.
The shrimp dinner with "four jumbo fried shrimp"? That went for a buck-sixty-five and included onion rings and French bread and your choice of shoestring or hash brown potatoes.
The restaurant's closed on Feb. 12 and has been sold to new owners, according to the real estate news website Dirt.com, and "the future of Rod’s Grill is currently up in the air."
Dirt said Rod's went through a prolonged legal battle starting in 2005 when government officials threatened eminent domain on the site with the intention of tearing it down to make way for the expansion of a neighboring Mercedes-Benz dealership.
Local residents and political figures short-circuited the plan, but then Rod's suffered another serious blow from the covid-19 pandemic, which took the life of owner and operator Manny Romero, who took over in 1996.
"A big thank you to the Romero Family for creating so many memories for generations of people," Merch Motel tweeted.
