Est. 1919 · Oldest restaurant in Hollywood (est. 1919) · Hollywood Walk of Fame Star recipient (2019) · Literary and cinema landmark · Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument
Hollywood Boulevard in 1919 was a dusty commercial strip a long way from the glamour it would later project. Firmin Toulet, a French immigrant, opened Frank's François Café at 6669 Hollywood Boulevard that year, and the combination of decent food and a tolerant attitude toward working actors built a loyal following quickly.
In 1923, Joseph Musso joined as a business partner, and the establishment took the name Musso and Frank Grill. Ownership passed in 1927 to Joseph Carissimi and John Mosso, who expanded the restaurant into the adjacent space at 6667 Hollywood Boulevard in 1936. The 1955 addition — still called "the new room" by regulars — completed the current footprint. The Mosso family eventually bought out all other interests and continues to operate the restaurant through multiple generations.
The restaurant's clientele during the studio era reads like a who's-who of Hollywood and American letters. Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks were regulars in the silent era; Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, and Marilyn Monroe came through during the 1940s and 1950s. Screenwriters Raymond Chandler, Nathanael West, and William Faulkner — all working on studio contract assignments they often resented — made Musso and Frank a daily refuge. Dorothy Parker was a regular.
In 2008, GQ named the bar the best place in America for a martini. In 2018 the restaurant served 55,272 of them. The 2019 centennial coincided with the restaurant receiving the first Hollywood Walk of Fame star ever awarded to a restaurant.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musso_%26_Frank_Grill
- https://mussoandfrank.com/
- https://www.discoverlosangeles.com/eat-drink/musso-frank-grill
ApparitionsCold spotsPhantom scent (cigar smoke)
Musso and Frank has been on the Hollywood ghost tour circuit long enough that its haunting lore is well-developed — but the sourcing for specific accounts runs almost entirely through tour operators rather than independent documentation.
The most consistent claim: Chaplin's ghost appears as a small, compact man in vintage 1920s clothes at his regular booth — the third from the back on the right side, sometimes identified as Booth No. 1. Cold spots are said to concentrate there. The account comes primarily from American Ghost Walks and LA Ghost Tour promotional materials, with a few bartender anecdotes relayed secondhand.
A second figure, said to resemble Orson Welles, is described as a large man at the bar accompanied by the smell of cigar smoke — plausible since Welles was a documented regular and a heavy cigar smoker. California's smoking ban, in effect since 1995, gives the olfactory report some intrinsic interest, but again the sourcing is tour-operator material.
No deaths occurred at the restaurant itself. Jean Harlow, one name attached to a ladies' room apparition in some accounts, died in 1937 of kidney failure at Good Samaritan Hospital, not at Musso and Frank. The connection is based on her being a known patron, not on any event at the location. The ghost stories here are best understood as the accumulated mythology of a 100-year-old room that has absorbed a great deal of history.
Notable Entities
Charlie ChaplinOrson Welles
