About a month ago I went to LA for the most fun girls trip (sorry it took me so long to get this post up…been a little busy over here). We seriously had the best time! We were there 3 nights and did all things Vanderpump! This all started last Christmas when some friends and I were chatting about our love for Vanderpump Rules! It is seriously one of my guilty pleasures. Let’s be real. . .I LOVE all things Lisa Vanderpump. I am also a huge RHOBH fan! Anyway, we decided we should all take a girls trip and go see all of Lisa Vanderpump’s restaurants. Fast forward 10 months later and away we went! If you love these shows I highly recommend doing this. It was like an adult field trip! Here are all the details. . .and a TON of pictures! If you follow me on Instagram Stories you got some sneak peeks. . .and some videos that got deleted a few hours later. HAHA, not a great idea to IG story while drinking Pumptinis (those things are strong)!
We flew out on Thursday and came home on Sunday. This trip was action packed and I needed a day to recover when I got home! I am not as young as I used to be! Also. . . our text thread was so much fun. . .our GIF (or is it MEME) game was strong!
THURSDAY:
We left Thursday and hit the ground running! We had to have our hair/make-up ready bc we were going straight to Jimmy Kimmel when we landed. This is the first flight I have ever gone on with fake lashes :).
My friend Casey (left) is in a round about way related to Jimmy Kimmel so we got VIP tickets to the show and the green room. Such a cool experience. We landed at LAX, took a cab ride with the grumpiest driver ever and arrived at our cute VRBO in West Hollywood. We loved the place we stayed. It was clean, cute and a great location! We changed clothes in about 10 minutes and headed out to Jimmy Kimmel!
Kimmel was a blast. So Casey’s nephew is Jimmy’s son so we got to meet him, have food/drinks in the greenroom and then go watch the show being filmed. The guests were Viola Davis and Christian Slater. My 8th grade heart skipped a beat! Geoff sent me the photo below (a picture of our TV so not the best quality) of us on the show!
After Kimmel we walked around Hollywood Blvd for a bit and then headed back to get ready for dinner at PUMP!
So Lisa Vanderpump has 4 restaurants. PUMP, SUR (Vanderpump Rules is filmed here), TOM TOM and Villa Blanca. This night we had reservations at PUMP. We absolutely loved it. It is stunning! Like WOW! The patio is like some fairytale land with gorgeous trees, lanterns, fairy lights, antiques, flowers, etc. We ate on the patio and couldn’t stop talking about it. We had Pumptinis and I ordered the pasta which was amazing! If you are a Vanderpump Rules fan you know the scene where James says “It’s not about the pasta”. . .well, at PUMP it was ALL ABOUT THE PASTA! YUM!!
PUMPTINIS ALL AROUND!!!
All of the restaurants were super close to each other so after dinner at Pump we headed over to TOM TOM. When we walked in we found out we had literally missed seeing Tom Schwartz by about 15 minutes! Such a bummer! That would have been so cool. TOM TOM is the newest restaurant and owned by 2 of the Toms from Vanderpump Rules. The drinks were amazing and the atmosphere is so cool!
After TOM TOM we went around the corner to SUR. Like I said, everything was so close!
After a late night we headed home to do it all again the next day!
FRIDAY
Friday we headed to the Ivy for brunch. Long story, but they require you order a certain amount of food at the Ivy and we just weren’t that hungry so we ended up leaving. It was pretty ridiculous actually. We were ordering mimosas, apps and meals, but they required 1 entree and 1 app per person (they wouldn’t even allow soup/salad)?! Really?? Since when do people in LA eat that much?! Oh well, we got to check it out and take cute pictures.
After we left the Ivy, we went to Joan on Third and had a lovely lunch. It was so good! Very cool place and we even got to see Joan herself!
After we filled our bellies we hit up Rodeo drive to empty our wallets!
While we were in Beverly Hills we headed over to Villa Blanca for some Mimosas! We ended up seeing Lisa’s Brother in Law Jason while we were there. I am telling you. . .we are true fans! Ha.
After a full morning, we headed back to our house to rest for a bit and get changed for a full night of fun!
We had dinner reservations at SUR. This is the place we were the most excited about because it is where they actually film Vanderpump Rules. It was so cool seeing all the places in real life.
The famous SUR Goat Cheese Balls. . .and YES, they were worth the hype!
So while we were at SUR we saw one of the managers on the show and Jeremy was bartending (in next 2 photos). He is Arianna’s brother and he is on the show. He was super nice and we ended up talking with him for a long time. He said not many of the people on the show work at SUR anymore. Only while they are filming. He made some amazing drinks! If you go you have to get the Espresso Martini. Seasonally they offer a Pumpkin Spice Espresso martini and we had several of those!
Here Leslie and I are pretending to clock in at SUR. There are many scenes filmed in this exact location so we had too!
We also had to partake in a photo shoot out the back of the restaurant where tons of drama goes down on the show!
After a lovely dinner at SUR we went back to TOM TOM.
We heard that Catch was a really cool place to go, so we headed there after TOM TOM. We ran into Michael Irvin (go Cowboys) and Jamie Foxx! Unfortunately we didn’t get a picture with him. Catch was really pretty! We loved it so much we went back the next day for brunch! We ended our night getting in our jammies, having girl talk and eating cookie dough and cheese-its! A winning combo!
SATURDAY
We ended up staying out super late on Friday so we slept in as long as we could on Saturday. Unfortunately that really isn’t that late anymore. We were trying to channel our teenage selves, but it wasn’t working. Needless to say we did not get much sleep on this trip. Oh well, there is plenty of time to sleep later!
Originally we were going to have brunch at Villa Blanca, but since we went there for drinks/apps the previous day we felt like we got to experience it and wanted to try something new. We got ready and headed to Chateau Marmont for brunch. Unfortunately, when we got there they were only serving hotel guests because it was raining (which never happens in LA) and the entire patio was closed so there was not much room. Bummer! Oh well, we headed back to Catch and had a delicious brunch there.
DRESS| JACKET| HAT (old and couldn’t find similar)| BOOTIES
TOP| JEANS| SHOES I got so many questions about this top. It is from SHOP Style your Senses and as soon as it is available for sale I will link it and share with everyone. She gifted it to me early because I was in love with it! Also comes in a cute black color. . .stay tuned!
After brunch we went back to our VRBO and took naps! LA was all about the night life so we went back to our VRBO and took naps! After a good nap we were ready for our last night! We decided to spend the night hitting up all of our favorite places from the night before and just having drinks and apps at each place. Kind of like a progressive dinner type of thing?! Anyway, we started back at PUMP for Pumptinis and Pasta!
My friends took a picture of me doing Instagram stories! 🙂
After PUMP, we went back to SUR, TOM TOM, went to a place called CRAIGS where we got a picture with paparazzi and then ended our night back at CATCH! We made friends with the bouncer below!
We shut the place down and got home around 3:30 and had to be up by 6:30!! WHEW!! It was a blast, but LA Elaine has waaay more energy than Mckinney Elaine haha!
There were so many other pictures we took, interesting people we met (like a guy that will be on American Idol next year, a “sex tape fixer”, a guy named Big Money who was Khloe Kardashian’s body guard, the nicest guy named Chad who was also on a Vanderpump tour, etc), and memories made (Vandertrip Ladies. . .if you are reading this I will never look at lemons the same again, haha). This was an epic girls trip and I highly recommend doing it with your girlfriends! We didn’t run into Lisa Vanderpump (although we found out she went to PUMP about an hour after we left), so we will have to try again next time! After writing this post I am now craving Goat Cheese Balls and a Espresso Martini stat!