Where Hollywood Goes to Get Its Restaurant Sets | Eater

"A large, family-run prop rental house in Burbank, California, founded over three decades ago by Lennie and now run by his son Keith Marvin, it occupies nearly 100,000 square feet and devotes roughly a quarter of its furniture and smaller items to restaurant and food set dressing. The campus-like headquarters is organized thematically—Building 1 holds bar props, Building 2 is food-centric (farmers market, fish market, deli, wine store, grocery) and Buildings 3 and 4 contain department-store, hardware, casino and music-related props—so set decorators and shoppers can reliably find everything from a single modular bar section to a full-scale room build-out. Inventory runs into the thousands and includes 700–900 raw-meat pieces, 400 nigiri/sashimi sushi items, 40–50 hanging roast chickens, 12 Peking ducks, 4 whole roast pigs, roughly 400 raw fish plus 100 lobsters/crabs, 175 ice-cream items, 350 doughnuts, 300 cupcakes, 34 wedding cakes, 125 assorted cakes, 65 pies, 275 baguettes, 20 whole pizzas and 500–1,000 of each major fruit, with tens of thousands of fruits and vegetables earmarked for farmer’s market sets. Regularly rented larger pieces include wheeled, modular bars, tiki and ’50s-diner builds, a Cheers-type bar, a cowboy bar, a seafood-restaurant set and juice- or Starbucks-esque cafe and frozen-yogurt fixtures, while the company also adapts purchases to dining trends (industrial/steampunk fixtures, communal tables, Edison bulbs and a shift toward lighter farmer’s-market shelving). Television and commercials make up about 80% of the business—virtually every LA-shot show uses their inventory—so turnaround ranges from a few days to week-ahead prep with day-of rentals possible. Sourcing challenges and costs shape the collection: some items are hard to replace or expensive (faux whole roast pigs ~ $500 each, Peking ducks ~ $175), hanging chickens sometimes go missing, large whole fish are difficult to find in the sizes desired, and specialty builds like sushi bars or frozen-yogurt walls can be technically or financially challenging." - Alexandra Ilyashov