FX’s “The Bear” has been the series equivalent of a three-star Michelin, James Beard Award-winning restaurant since its premiere in 2022. Created by writer/director/product Christopher Storer, the hit show revolves around Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), a chef from the fine dining world in New York, who returns to his home in Chicago to run the family’s sandwich shop after the suicide of his brother. The first season won 10 Emmys including best comedy series and actor in a comedy series for White. Besides earning a Peabody, “The Bear” also performed well at the SAG Awards and the Golden Globes. The second season is a strong Emmy contender and the third season which just dropped will probably follow suit in 2025.
Since the early days of TV, restaurants, nightclubs, coffee shops, bars and diners have played an important role in countless series including the beloved multi-Emmy Award-winning 1982-93 NBC sitcom “Cheers”. In fact, these establishments often become characters such as the Tropicana in “I Love Lucy”; Arnold’s on “Happy Days”; the Peach Pit on “Beverly Hills, 90210”; the Double R Diner on “Twin Peaks”; Central Perk on “Friends”; “The Simpsons’” Moe’s Tavern and the Café Royale on “Schitt’s Creek.”
Probably very few remember “Duffy’s Tavern,” a syndicated comedy that began in 1954 and ran for 39 episodes. Set in a seedy bar and grill in New York City, “Duffy’s Tavern” was based on a long-running radio series that began in 1941 and ended a decade later. Ed Gardner played Archie, the manager of the Tavern-Duffy was never seen nor heard. And the radio series featured many high- profile guest stars including Lucille Ball, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, Lena Horne, Boris Karloff and Gene Tierney. Gardner had a keen eye for young writers including Abe Burrows and Larry Gelbart. A 1945 feature film “Ed Gardner’s Duffy’s Tavern” was not a hit. The New York Times described it as a “poor show” adding that Gardner forgot his lines and didn’t “give the impression of thinking about what he is saying and believing in it.”
Sometimes a TV series is, well, more than a TV series. That was the case with CBS’ “Alice,” which ran from 1976 until 1985. Based on Martin Scorsese’s 1974 “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” for which Ellen Burstyn won the best actress Oscar, the sitcom revolved around a widow (Linda Lavin) with a young son (Philip McKeon) who leaves her home in New Jersey and sets out by car for Los Angeles to resurrect her singing career. When her car breaks down outside of Phoenix, she ends up getting a job as a waitress in a greasy spoon called Mel’s. The series earned eight Emmy nominations including one for Lavin in 1979. In a 2013 L.A. Times interview, Lavin told me she became a sort of spokesperson for working women who identified with Alice. “I was pulled into the women’s movement,” Lavin noted. “I was asked to speak at events. I had never been asked to speak in public before. I was a musical comedy actress. I was invited to labor rallies and ERA marches. I got educated. I was invited to join the National Commission on Working Women.” And as Lavin become more politicized, so did the series. “We did those issues on the show. When Mel (Vic Tayback) hired a waiter and paid him more than us, I organized [the waitresses] Flo (Polly Holliday) and Vera (Beth Howland) and said we are on strike.”
Despite strong reviews, the CBS comedy “Frank’s Place” failed to connect with audiences back in 1987-88. TV Guide place it third out of 60 series in its 2013 list of series “cancelled too soon” and Rolling Stones placed it No. 99 in a list of best sitcoms. Created by Hugh Wilson of “WKRP in Cincinnati” fame, the series stars “WKRP” alum Tim Reid as a professor at Brown University who inherits his estranged father’s restaurant in New Orleans. He has plans to sell it that is until a veteran waitress puts a voodoo “spin” on the professor. Just as with “Alice,” the series often examined serious topics such as race and class structure. Besides Reid, the cast included his wife Daphne Maxwell Reid and Tony Award-winner Virginia Capers (“Raisin”). Samm-Art Williams, who penned the Tony nominated 1980 play “Home,” currently being revived on Broadway, was one of the series’ writers. The New York Times wrote: “’Frank’s Place’ does take its people seriously, capturing the special warmth of New Orleans without tumbling into patronizing caricature. The show also takes its food seriously, spurning the label ‘Cajun’ and noting with pride that this is ‘Creole’ territory. As a concept, ‘Frank’s Place’ is the sort of effort that could easily become likeable over the long haul.” The series received nine Emmy nominations earning three including best writing (Wilson) and guest actress for Beah Richards, who had received an Oscar nomination as Sidney Poitier’s mother in 1967’ “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”
Inspired by Carson McCullers’ “Ballad of the Sad Cafe,” Percy Adlon’s 1987 comedy-drama “Bagdad Café” was one of the top indie films of the year. Set at a truck stop and motel in the desolate Mojave Desert, the film revolves around the friendship that develops between two women (Marianne Sagebrecht, CCH Pounder) recently separated from their husbands, who run and work at the Bagdad Café. The movie was giving the shot-before-a-live-studio-audience sitcom treatment by CBS in early1990. Whoopi Goldberg and Jean Stapleton took over for Pounder and Sagebrecht. Other cast members included Cleavon Little and James Gammon. To put it politely, reviews were mixed with the L.A. Times’ Howard Rosenberg stating the premiere “”doesn’t click” … it yields no laughs”. And no audience. In its truncated second season, “Bagdad” ranked 74th-the show proved to be no match against ABC’s “Family Matters.” Goldberg left the series in November 1990. Entertainment Weekly noted that with no time to recast the role, the production was shuttered “Her walkout came as little surprise to insiders, who say the actress had been in increasingly fierce and abusive clashes with ‘Café’s’ creative team.” Though the series ended in Nov. 1990, the final two episodes popped up in July 1991.
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