A certain apron caught my eye in the trailer for One Night Only. A bartender slides two shots over to Monica Barbaro’s and King Princess’ characters, donning the signature uniform of Dante, the aperitivo bar and restaurant that’s home to an iconic Garibaldi and a Punch-favorite Negroni. This, co-owner Linden Pride tells me, is not Dante’s first film rodeo. “We’ve used each of our restaurants in New York—Caffe Dante, Dante West Village, and Dante Aperitivo—as film sets,” he says, “and all of our experiences have been so different.”
I chatted with Pride about the ins and outs, costs, and challenges of having your space act as a film set.
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Mary Anne Porto: Dante locations have been featured on screen a few times. Was that a goal of yours, or do film productions usually approach you?
Linden Pride: It’s all location scouts. We’re blessed because we have a historical space with Caffe Dante [which is a registered New York landmark], and Dante West Village and Dante Aperitivo are on really beautiful corners. They’re quintessential New York moments, which is also what drew [our hospitality group] to those sites. They almost feel like a storybook already.
Whose job is it to secure permits and other logistics for a shoot?
The film crew set up all the permits and make sure they’re able to close off the street or park their trucks there or cordon off the area. They take on all of that. But it also all comes down to how you’ve set the relationship [with your landlord] at the beginning. In our lease with our first landlord, it said that we couldn’t do photoshoots or film shoots. When I was negotiating the lease, I didn’t pay much attention to it, because I was like, “Well, we’re a restaurant, why would I care about that?”
Then we did a scene out of And Just Like That… [at Dante West Village], which was a dream for my wife and my daughter. We negotiated the deal [with the film crew], but as soon as we set up to film, my landlord called me and tried to shut it down. I was on the phone with the landlord, and my wife was like, “We’re not shutting it down! I’m sitting next to Sarah Jessica Parker!”
Now, in subsequent leases, I always put a carve out in there to make sure that I’m able to entertain doing a video shoot. I negotiate that part now in the beginning. So from that to working with a landlord who supports and encourages it, there are very different experiences.
How did you convince that landlord to let you continue shooting?
At the time that [the landlord passed the bar], they were shooting a scene where Carrie is breaking up with her longtime partner, and she walks into the restaurant and he doesn’t, or something like that. His whole thing was, “You can’t be working with a vendor inside the restaurant.” I said, “Well, they’re filming on the sidewalk.” It was kind of a grey area, so they permitted it, and it passed. But if they were filming inside of the restaurant, I would’ve had to shut it down.
I understand [from the landlord’s perspective] that you’re basically selling their space for not the purposes they want to sell it for. They want it to be a restaurant, and as soon as you get into IP and how this is going to be sold and marketed, they want to be much more involved in those conversations, which is fair enough. For One Night Only, I got my landlord involved from the beginning, and it was kind of a three-way negotiation, as opposed to just me and the production company. They had other requests, such as notifying all the tenants in the building and making sure that access in and out of the apartments weren’t blocked.
Speaking of marketing, I recognized Dante in the One Night Only trailer because, like you said, it’s a pretty iconic spot. But there’s also Dante branding in the movie; there’s the signage, and a bartender wears a Dante apron. Was that something you negotiated or requested that the film include?
No, they volunteered that, which I love. For And Just Like That…, they had the waiters dressed in these weird, quirky outfits, like white shirts and black ties, and it looked like the 1990s. So this time, even though it’s not our staff—it’s funny to see that guy, who I’ve never seen before in my life, standing behind the bar in a Dante uniform—I’m very grateful to have that brand positioning front and center. So many people have reached out to us and said, “We saw Dante in One Night Only,” and that’s been amazing.
How long is a film crew typically there for?
It’s always at least one day, and we’ve done up to three days. They usually come in at 5 a.m. and they bump out by midnight. They’re really in it all day. Because the restaurants aren’t that big, and they have these big production companies and so many staff, they end up sometimes taking up the whole street.
How much does a production company pay to film something like this?
I always price it at what the daily revenue would be to close the restaurant for a day. If we’re going to close, there shouldn’t be any opportunity costs that we lose out on. But where the win is, is you don’t have the same costs [ingredients, staffing] associated with [a day of service].
Were there any production costs that you were responsible for?
It was mostly taken care of. In the past, we’ve supplied meals for crews, but that’s really challenging because you can’t make much noise, you can’t really cook in the kitchen, and productions need to have a rolling menu available. After one experience of that, I didn’t really do it again. Other than that, it’s basically set up and take down. I also had two staff members there all day to talk to neighbors. That’s something about New York; you inhabit these private spaces, but inevitably, your business—and everyone’s business—spills out onto the sidewalk. So you need to be able to manage expectations.
