When James Caan’s death was announced last month, the movie legend’s favourite table at the Polo Lounge – the Beverly Hills Hotel’s storied in-house restaurant and bar – was roped off. On tucked-away Table One, which was also Charlie Chaplin’s preferred booth, was placed a candle and a photo of the star, as well as Caan’s most-loved meal; the house special of a chopped “McCarthy” salad, featuring chicken, bacon, beetroot and avocado, and an extremely dirty martini with extra olive brine. “When one of our really great, well-known regulars passes, we always put aside their favourite table and leave it all day and all night,” says Steven Boggs, director of global guest relations at the hotel and veritable font of Hollywood history. “We call it ‘setting a final place’.”
Carrie Fisher, James Garner and Burt Reynolds are just some of the other dearly departed regulars to have received this same honour. As you might have noticed, the regulars at the Beverly Hills Hotel aren’t like other regulars. They’re Rita Hayworth, Katharine Hepburn, Paul McCartney and – going by the past week’s posts from celebrity gossip Instagram account Deux Moi – Kim Kardashian, Megan Fox and rapper Machine Gun Kelly. While other spots fall in and out of favour with the cream of the celebrity crop, no other venue in Los Angeles boasts quite the same sustained level of star power as the Beverly Hills Hotel.
