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Thursday October 3rd 2024

Go | 1999

Go location: Jons Supermarket, South Central Avenue, Los Angeles
Go location: the supermarket: Jons Supermarket, South Central Avenue, Los Angeles

Los Angeles checkout clerks get involved with drug busts, guns and stolen cars in Doug Liman’s dazzling, darkly funny follow-up to Swingers, made almost entirely on location around Los Angeles and Las Vegas. It shares a similar fractured timescale to Run Lola Run and Pulp Fiction.

In the movie, the store around which the story centres is called ‘Sons’, so you might imagine it's a lightly-disguised branch of Vons. In fact the store is Jons Market, 1011 East Adams Boulevard at South Central Avenue, south of downtown Los Angeles, which was chosen for its unmodernised appearance. The film-makers were horrified to find out that the owner had used the location fee to – you guessed it – smarten up his store before filming started. It had to be re-gunged for the film.

I love this film, so this was one of my own personal favourite locations. I did manage to resist the urge to launch into a tango at the vegetable stall.

The inspiration for the store came from Ralph’s Grocery, 7257 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, known as ‘rock’n’roll Ralph’s’, as it's open late, and is situated in the middle of the famed stretch of guitar shops and music academies. A good place for celeb spotting if you get the late-night munchies.

Go location: the Riviera Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas Boulevard South, Las Vegas
Go location: the Riviera Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas Boulevard South, Las Vegas

The Las Vegas locations are the old Riviera Hotel and Casino, which stood until 2015 at 2901 Las Vegas Boulevard South at Riviera Boulevard (seen in the original 1960 Ocean’s Eleven, and more recently in The Hangover); and at the Frontier Hotel and Casino, 3120 Las Vegas Boulevard South, which bit the dust in 2007.