Quick: name Five things about your friend Valley Glen
Can you find it on a map? Do you know what legendary movie was shot there? Rob Takata has the answers.
Rob Takata is one of those smart guys who could have been a smart aleck, but he had bigger aspirations.
Tony and Rob sat next to each other in the nerve center of E! Entertainment right after the turn of the century and lived to tell about it. Which they’ll do a little here. While smirking.
But the star of the show is Rob’s current neighborhood, surrounded by freeways, often misidentified: Valley Glen.
Sometimes businesses that are in Valley Glen intentionally misidentifies where they truly are. How can this BE?
Click the play button to hear their entire 50-minute conversation, or read below at the highlights.
Warning: There Will Be Tiki Bar discussions.
Five Quick Things About Your Friend, Valley Glen
- Most can’t find it on the map. Now you can! Valley Glen is just west of North Hollywood
Rob Takata: I’m in Valley Glen. Two miles east of the 405, two miles north of the 101. Next door to North Hollywood. Sherman Oaks to the south.
Tony Pierce: You’re in the heart of the Valley.
It’s dead center on this side of the Valley. Not the West Valley. Not the other side of the 405 Valley. But yeah, pretty, pretty central.
2. They filmed a classic scene for Fast Times in Valley Glen
Right near me is a place called Barones.
It’s kind of an old school Italian joint — like a red sauce kind of Italian restaurant.
Tablecloths?
Yeah, I believe they have tablecloths. You walk in there… there’s red booths and all that.
You think, “this stuff looks kind of weird and European: like German.” And then come to find out it was a German restaurant before that.
Now, Barones existed elsewhere in the valley prior to moving there. But the German place that was there was the setting for the scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
It’s where Rat asked Damone to bring him his wallet.
Yes! Where the chairs were so tall to make them look like they’re little kids!
I don’t know if those chairs… I don’t think they’re there now. But yeah, that’s the setting for that scene.
The Original Barone’s Famous Italian Restaurant
13726 Oxnard Street, Valley Glen, 91401
(818) 782–6004
3. Valley Glen is the home of the oldest Tiki Bar in LA?!?!
They’ll say they’re in North Hollywood, but they’re very definitely in Valley Glen. Tonga Hut on Victory is the oldest continuously operating Tiki bar in Los Angeles.
It opened about a year before Tiki Ti, I believe.
It kind of fell into a local Barfly joint for a while, but then in the last 15 years or so it was reacquired by some true believers and they’ve added a lot of decor and love into it.
They have parking lot events and sales and bands. They also have Rum Club, which is great.
Learn about rum: one of my favorite things.
Are you a tiki drinker?
Oh, absolutely.
One of the things I learned how to do during the pandemic was how to make a Mai Tai.
Is it hard to make?
It’s got a bunch of ingredients. It’s got, I don’t know, eight ingredients in it. And then I was making Zombies and Navy Grogs and all the other stuff too, because it was fun.
I didn’t have anything else to do, so I’d sit there and didn’t have to go anywhere. I could drink as many fruity drinks as I wanted to.
How interesting that the lie is we’re in North Hollywood.
I think it’s because people know North Hollywood if you say North Hollywood. But if you say Valley Glen, they have no idea where it is.
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4. The Orange Line busway jets through the hood
A nice thing about Valley Glen is the Orange Line busway cuts right through it.
And along the Orange Line busway there’s a little path — a little pedestrian and bike path. That was a big part of my walk during the early days of the pandemic.
It’s very pleasant. You’re just behind people’s houses, there’s a lot of trees, and it’s quiet.
It’s just a nice little thing in the middle of town.
Because what they did was instead of spending billions making light rail, they took existing streets. Maybe they built a street or two…
I think, actually, it was an old rail line at some point… I don’t know if it was Red Car stuff or if it was other industrial stuff. But you can see some little bits of old rail stuff along the side.
So they made dedicated bus routes through the valley, which is genius. Have you ridden this before?
Oh yeah. The lights change —
Does the bus driver have to stop at the light?
They do. I don’t know if they’re timed, but they are triggered by the bus being there because they turn relatively quickly after bus arrives.
5. LA Valley College is in Valley Glen: it’s real and it’s spectacular
Walking across the campus of LA Valley College is… nice.
It’s its own pleasant little thing.
LA Valley College is nicely landscaped. They’re doing a lot of stuff to conserve water there. It was not a terrible place to spend Pandemic Time.
Well known LA Valley College Alumni:
Ed Begley, Jr. (Spinal Tap)
Sean Astin (Lord of the Rings)
Daryl Dragon (Captain & Tennille)
Micky Dolenz (The Monkees)
Genie Francis (Laura in General Hospital)
Cynthia Gibb (Fame)
Paul Orfalea (Kinko’s founder)
Tom Selleck (Magnum PI)
You’re gonna want to hear the rest of this conversation where Rob talks about working at E!, growing up in San Gabriel Valley, and if it was easier or harder to kiss girls back in the day when you’re half-Japanese?
You know who we’d ride a bus through the valley with? Our Patreons.
Thank you Nancy, Shawn, Matt, Sean, Emilio, Greg & Molli, Mark Johnson, Keira-Anne, Barney, Ben Welsh, Henry Fuhrmann, Jamie, Jen, The Lonely Chair, Trevor Wilson, Bree Wilde, Dougie Gyro, Kristina, and Rob & Carrie!
Thank you for helping make all of this possible!
Special thanks to Mark Johnson for being there, always, bless you sir.
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(It’s cheaper than it has the right to be.)
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We are calling these generous souls Angel-enos.
Angelenos: #1 Ali Miller, #2 George Wright #3 Rita Joanne #4 Jason Sutter #5 Grant Haughton #6 Rob Baker #7 KevCheng #8 Brenda Garcia #9 John Griffiths
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Hear in LA is produced by Tony Pierce and a man who’s probably played LA Valley College, Jordan Katz.
Editing, music supervision & mixing by Jordan Katz.
Songs by Orgōne and Jordan Katz.
This blog post was produced and edited by magical elves who trimmed down the transcript of the podcast to this representational sample and merged words, added words, made up words, and basically screwed everything to all hell so you should just listen to the interview for exactly what was said, ok.
OKAY?
Shout out to:
Cindy for the graphic.
Jen Adams for the encouragement to do this years ago!
And to everyone who continually learns new tricks: be it making fruity drinks, learning a new language, or figuring out how to put traitors in jail. Keep that noggin growing.
