Cafés that Never Really Were Trivia Quiz

Answer: Rick's Café Américain

The motion picture "Casablanca" was based on Murray Burnett and Joan Allison's play "Everybody Comes to Rick's." Producer Hal Wallis bought the rights for $20,000 which sounds small in today's dollar but was, at the time, the largest royalty ever paid to film an unproduced play.

In addition to Bogart, the cast included Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Dooley Wilson.

Answer: Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller

The soundtrack to "Smokey Joe's Cafe" won the Grammy for Best Musical Show Album in 1996. The show was a compendium of Leiber and Stoller rock-and-roll and rhythm-and-blues songs. The show was unencumbered by plot. It played in Los Angeles, New York and London.

The song "Smokey Joe's Cafe" which was written for the show was not used. Songs include "Kansas City," "Poison Ivy," "On Broadway," "Yakety Yak," "Hound Dog," "There Goes My Baby," "Love Potion #9," "Jailhouse Rock," "Spanish Harlem," "I (Who Have Nothing)," and "Stand by Me."

Answer: Canada

"The Vinyl Cafe" was the name of both the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's radio programme and of the fictional record store operated by Dave in the weekly "Dave and Morley" stories written and told by McLean. The programme moved to a different town in Canada each week.

The music was by Canadian groups and individuals. McLean's stories were so popular that he produced ten books of them in his career and sold over a million copies. The motto of both Dave's record shop and of the radio programme was "We May Not Be Big, But We're Small." McLean shared his diagnosis of melanoma with his listeners in 2015 when he stopped touring and producing new episodes.

He died in 2017 which concluded the Vinyl Cafe.

Answer: Frasier

When Dr Frasier Crane moved from Boston to Seattle, it is unsurprising that he would trade his old beer-drinking haunt (Cheers) for a Seattle coffee shop. The Café Nervosa is a fictional coffee shop located at Third and Pike in downtown Seattle, across the street from the equally fictional studios of Radio KACL. Frasier and his brother Niles often met there to talk and share a cup. One episode, "My Coffee with Niles," was set entirely within the shop.

In 1996, a tie-in cookbook called "Café Nervosa: The Connoisseur's Cookbook" was published; it purported to be written by Frasier and Niles.

Answer: Monster Café

The BBC production "Monster Café" aired two seasons (1994-1995). The Café was run by the Baroness de Monstro who is ill-tempered, stingy and opposed to any form of having fun. The manager is Frankie, a female robot. The cook is Igor, an ancient Transylvanian man with bad hygiene who has a pet garbage can named Vinny.

The café's caretaker is Mummy who is, oddly enough, a 6000-year-old Egyptian mummy.

Answer: Alabama

The novel "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe" tells a long story, spread over years, of people connected to the small Southern community of Whistle Stop, Alabama, and thereabouts. The title is a reference to the Whistle Stop Cafe, a dining establishment operated by some of the characters.

As a sort of story within a story, elderly Ninny Threadgoode tells Evelyn Couch stories about the small restaurant. The reference to "fried green tomatoes" is to a preparation of unripe tomato slices, dipped in egg or buttermilk, then in cornmeal or breadcrumbs or flour, and then shallow fried in bacon grease.

A recipe is provided at the end of the book.

Answer: Vincent van Gogh

Night cafés were open-all-night restaurant/bars popular in the late 19th century in Europe. Vincent van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo in 1888 saying that Ginoux had taken so much of his money that it was only fair for him to "take" this image. The occupants are a sorry lot: drunks, ladies of the evening, those who cannot afford a room. Van Gogh stayed up all night, three nights in a row, sleeping during the day, to create the painting.

The result is perhaps one of his best-known works.

Answer: Prairie Home Companion

Garrison Keillor thought up an entire small town in central Minnesota and named it Lake Wobegon. For as long as "Prairie Home Companion" was on the air (1974-2016), Keillor told droll stories about the curious residents of Lake Wobegon. These often included mention of the Chatterbox Café.

The little restaurant was run by Dorothy and Darlene. Dorothy baked "softball-sized caramel rolls." Coffee cost "25¢, All Morning 85¢, All Day $1.25, Ask About Our Weekly Rates". The place competed, 'tho not actually, with the snobby Café Boeuf, "Where the elite meet to greet and eat" and the maitre d' Maurice was always ready to make a customer feel inadequate.

The Chatterbox was much more accommodating; its motto was "The place to go that's just like home."

Answer: I'll Be Seeing You

Sammy Fain composed the music and Irving Kahal wrote the lyrics to "I'll Be Seeing You" in 1938 for the Broadway musical "Right This Way" which closed after 15 performances. Frank Sinatra recorded it with Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra in 1940. Bing Crosby and Billie Holiday each recorded it in 1944.

The lyrics apparently spoke to those separated by military service in WWII. Liberace used it as the theme song to his television programme. Stevie Wonder sang it for Johnny Carson for his last "Tonight Show" in May of 1992.

Answer: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Somewhere in the Betelgeuse system, the Café Lou harbors Hotblack Desiado who rents a room in which he composes songs for his ajuitar. His friend Ford Prefect spent time there with him, 'tho Ford loathed his music. This is all described in Chapter 16 of "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" in the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe" trilogy.

Answer: Hallowed Grounds Café

In the 2004 remake of George Romero's 1978 original "Dawn of the Dead," a group of survivors collect in a mall and fend off zombie attacks. The stores in the mall were all given fictional names during the production. The bookstore is called Bookmark.

There is a record store called RPM. Romero named the department store Gaylen Ross after the actress who appeared in the original film. The coffee shop was named Hallowed Grounds.

Answer: Seinfeld

The principals of "Seinfeld" (1989-1998) -- Jerry, George Costanza, Elaine Benes and Cosmo Kramer -- met regularly in "their" booth at Monk's Café. It was in the Upper West Side in New York City. The exteriors are of Tom's Restaurant at West 112th and Broadway; the interiors were shot on a set. The owner-cook-manager of Monk's is Larry the Cook. The primary waitress-cashier is Ruth Cohen. The coffee shop was named Monk's because Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David were writing the original show in an office with a poster of jazz musician Thelonious Monk on the wall.

Answer: The El Sleezo Cafe

The El Sleezo Cafe is so rough and tough that its owner, being played by James Coburn, is himself thrown out for being rowdy. The bar is frequented by "a motley collection of bikers, sailors, lumberjacks, cowboys, one-eyed midgets, and other tough customers." The principal menu items all include frogs legs. Kermit and Fozzie leave the El Sleezo in Fozzie's Studebaker in search of fame and fortune.

Answer: Saturday Night Live

Customers in The Olympia Café were welcome to order a cheeseburger, but not one without cheese; chips, but not fries; and Pepsi, but not Coca Cola. Pete Dionasopouos ran the greasy spoon in this ongoing sketch on "Saturday Night Live." Don Novello, who wrote the first such sketch in the series, said that the diner was based on the Billy Goat Tavern on Lower North Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Belushi's brother Jim said that John's character was based on their actual uncle, a frankfurter stand owner.

Answer: Groundhog Day

"Groundhog Day" was filmed in Woodstock, Illinois, 'tho the story was set in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. There was no Tip Top Cafe in either place in 1993; the interiors were shot on a set. The success of the movie prompted the opening of The Tip Top Bistro in Woodstock. It did not succeed and was replaced, variously, by Bella's Gelateria, Jaci's Cookie Shop and Taqueria La Placita.