29 Best Restaurant Scenes in Classic Movies and TV Shows

From dates and family dinners to confrontations, crime scenes, and comedy, restaurants in movies and TV shows can serve many dramatic functions. Some of the most memorable scenes in movie and television history take place over a meal, so we looked at 29 favorite restaurant scenes that check all the boxes. And we’d suggest not seeing any of these movies on an empty stomach either.

Related: Most Iconic Movie and TV Cars

Price: $7
Buy it from Amazon

This famous scene from 1978's frat boy comedy "Animal House" takes place in a college cafeteria. Bluto (John Belushi) first antagonizes the Deltas with his messy impression of a zit before running around the cafeteria eluding them. Finally, Bluto screams, "Food fight!" and everyone joins in.

Watch the scene

Related: Hit Movies That Were Expected to Bomb at the Box Office

Price: $9
Buy it from Amazon

When Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) travels back in time to 1955, he enters a diner and tries to order a Tab, then a Pepsi Free, not realizing the sugar-free diet soda and caffeine-free version of Pepsi hadn't been invented yet. Instead, he's given a sugar-free cup of black coffee. He soon notices he's taken a seat next to his teenage father, George (Crispin Glover), and that George's classmate Biff (Thomas F. Wilson) has been bullying George for years. This restaurant scene was so pivotal they recreated it in "Back to the Future II" (1989), albeit set in the year 2015. 

Watch the scene

For more fun entertainment stories, please sign up for our free newsletters.

Price: $26
Buy it from Amazon

This story of sibling restaurateurs climaxes with the ultimate meal. Primo (Tony Shalhoub) and Secondo (Stanley Tucci) prepare their stuffed Il Timpano, a secret recipe they've brought over from Italy. When they serve it, it’s so good that even their top competitor is wowed. The Timpano was so glamorously photographed, several recipes for the baked pasta dish have popped up since.

Watch the scene  

Price: $6
Buy it from Amazon

When Chef Carl Casper (Jon Favreau) gets critic Ramsey Michel (Oliver Platt) to give his restaurant a second chance, restaurant owner Riva (Dustin Hoffman) forces him to make the same old menu. When Ramsey gives it the same bad review, Carl confronts the critic at the table and goes nuclear. It's the rage everyone has always wanted to express. Really, why would Riva serve the same poorly reviewed menu?

Watch the scene (Warning: contains explicit language)

Price: $13

Buy it from Amazon

When their neighbor's dogs, the Bumpus hounds, ruin their Christmas turkey, the Parker family goes out for Chinese in the 1983 holiday classic. They express surprise when their duck is delivered with its head still attached. "That Christmas would live in our memories as the Christmas when we were introduced to Chinese turkey. All was right with the world," adult Ralphie Parker reminisces.

Watch the scene 

Price: $8 (used) 

Buy it from Amazon

New York bartender Brian Flanagan (Tom Cruise) gets what he deserves at Jerry's Diner, one of many scenes actually filmed in Toronto. After cheating on Jordan (Elisabeth Shue), Brian tries to apologize. She's not hearing it and wants to get back to work so she dumps a bowl of chicken a la king on Brian’s head after a plate of meatloaf in his lap.

Watch the scene (starting at minute 2:20)

Price: $10

Buy it from Amazon

 
Pretty much this entire movie is a great restaurant scene; it is called "Diner," after all. But if we had to choose one scene, it would be the roast beef sandwich scene. Friends Eddie (Steve Guttenberg) and Modell (Paul Reiser) argue over who gets to finish Eddie's sandwich, and you can tell this is the same conversation they have every night.

Watch the scene

Price: $9

Buy it from Amazon

Now that McDonald's finally serves breakfast all day, you may not remember just how frustrating it could be to miss the chain's breakfast hours. When former defense engineer William "D-Fens"  Foster (Michael Douglas) goes berserk for a day, the oppressive fast food timekeepers become a target of his rage.

Watch the scene 

Price: $5 

Buy it from Amazon

Charming high school senior Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) can talk his way into anyplace. So when a fancy restaurant refuses to serve him and his friends, he impersonates Abe Froman, the sausage king of Chicago, and gets his revenge on the snooty maitre d' (Jonathan Schmock). The food was fine, but nothing tastes better than victory.

Watch the scene

Price: $19

Buy it from Amazon

All Bobby Dupea (Jack Nicholson) wants is a side order of whole wheat toast with his breakfast, but the waitress insists there are no substitutions on the menu. Bobby elaborately figures out that they do stock whole wheat bread, as a chicken salad sandwich is served on whole wheat toast. His suggestion to hold everything, including the chicken salad, does not go well.

Watch the scene

Price: $8 

Buy it from Amazon

When Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) has to take action against the Sollozzo family, the hit goes down at Louis' Restaurant. Knowing he'll be frisked upon arrival, Michael prepares by having a gun hidden in the restroom prior to the meeting. This iconic scene is part of Michael's rise to become the Corleone godfather in a classic film full of memorable moments.

Watch the scene 

Price: $15 

Buy it from Amazon

This famous long take introduces pretty much everybody in the movie. Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) takes Karen (Lorraine Bracco) to the Copacabana, walking through the kitchen to take their seats as he meets every gangster who'll play a role in the film. Set to The Crystals' "Then He Kissed Me," this one really shows that Henry is connected.

Watch the scene

Price: $7
Buy it from Amazon

Paul Bunyan's Cupboard makes Chet Ripley (John Candy) a deal: eat The Old '96er, a 96-ounce prime-aged beef steak, in one sitting and his entire table eats for free. Chet may be a foodie, but 96 ounces of steak is a lot, even for him. What makes it worse is that the restaurant means all 96 ounces, including the fat Chet cut off and moved to the side.

Watch the scene

Price: $37
Buy it from Amazon

You'll never look at a teahouse the same way after John Woo's action masterpiece. Officer Tequila (Chow Yun-fat) and his partner Benny (Bowie Lam) try to make an arrest in the teahouse. When a gunfight breaks out, Tequila busts handguns out of the false bottoms of bird cages so he can slide across the floor and shoot all the baddies.

Watch the scene 

Price: $7 

Buy it from Amazon

The first time Lt. Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) and master criminal Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) meet at Beverly Hills restaurant Kate Mantilini is pivotal not just for the characters' meeting. It was also the first scene screen legends Pacino and De Niro ever shared together. Sadly, the actual Kate Mantilini closed in 2014.

Watch the scene 

Price: $235 

Buy it from Amazon

Every week, Lucille Ball would take a new job and make it hilarious. In "The Diner," the Ricardos and the Mertzes open a diner together, but soon feud. In classic sitcom fashion, they split the diner down the middle. Lucy and Ethel compete for customers, both trying to lure them over to their side.

Watch the scene

Price: $12 

Buy it from Amazon

No one is better at playing an idiot than Steve Martin. In his first movie vehicle, Martin played Navin R. Johnson, an idiot who gets rich. Dining at a fancy restaurant with Marie (Bernadette Peters), Navin sets the waiter straight on all that old wine. He wants to splurge on the new stuff — wine from this year, last year at the latest!

Watch the scene 

Price: $10 

Buy it from Amazon

Steve Martin returns to the dining scene, this time skewering Los Angeles society's phony highbrow drinks and lemming-like attitude. If you do the math on Harris K. Telemacher (Martin)'s half-double decaffeinated half-caf, he's ordering a coffee with negative caffeine. And everyone at the table copies his request for a twist of lemon because God forbid they should order their own drink.

Watch the scene

Price: $10 

Buy it from Amazon

Technically, Lady and the Tramp dine in the alley behind the restaurant, but this is such a heartwarming classic we'll make an exception. Sharing a plate of spaghetti, the animated dogs suck on a single noodle until they meet in a kiss, an iconic romantic scene that's been recreated and spoofed many times since.

Watch the scene 

Price: $7 

Buy it from Amazon

This was the ultimate "two dates in the same restaurant" debacle. Daniel Hillard (Robin Williams) is scheduled to meet a TV executive and dine with his family as Mrs. Doubtfire in the same restaurant. Going back and forth, changing in and out of his Doubtfire costume in the bathroom, Daniel eventually has too much to drink and accidentally sits at the executive's table in full Doubtfire garb.

Watch the scene 

Price: $9 

Buy it from Amazon

Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) enjoy a night out at Jack Rabbit Slims in one of the most iconic scenes in film history. There's the dance-off and the witty banter about uncomfortable silences, but the most memorable part may have been the $5 milkshake. Back in 1994, five bucks seemed like a lot to spend on a drink. Now it's a bargain!

Watch the scene 

Price: $13

Buy it from Amazon

There are many great restaurant scenes in this Pixar classic as Remy the rat (Patton Oswalt) helps human chef Linguini (Lou Romano) make fabulous meals. But the clincher is when they make even hardened food critic Anton Ego (Peter O'Toole) remember the childhood joy that first got him interested in food. Their meal gives him a flashback that melts his heart.

Watch the scene 

Price: $7 

Buy it from Amazon

When the Reservoir Dogs meet over breakfast, audiences get their first earful of Quentin Tarantino's snappy dialogue. Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi)'s no-tipping diatribe may be the most memorable and oft-quoted, but Mr. Brown (Tarantino)'s Madonna theory and Nice Guy Eddie (Chris Penn)'s classic rock nostalgia feature some zingers too.

Watch the scene (Warning: contains explicit language)

Price: $72

Buy it from Amazon

One of the most famous "Seinfeld" episodes is set entirely at a Chinese restaurant as the gang waits to be seated, and that's not even the show's best restaurant episode. In "The Pie," Jerry runs into the chef in the bathroom and the chef doesn't wash his hands. Exquisite close-ups of the chef personally handling Jerry's dinner make for a classic awkward episode about nothing.

Watch the scene

Price: $324 

Buy it from Amazon

"The Simpsons" has been on for 30 years, but let's go back to season two's episode "One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish." Homer will eat anything, but when he eats gourmet sushi, it might be fatal. I guess it's a spoiler now — Homer lives decades later — but that was a close one.

Watch the scene

Price: $130 

Buy it from Amazon

The very last shot of the series finale leaves Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) in a restaurant with his family as Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" plays. What did it mean? Did Tony get whacked? Does he just go on with his life? Fans began debating the "Sopranos" finale immediately after it aired over a decade and a half ago, but creator David Chase cleared that up years later: Tony dies.

Watch the scene

Price: $6 

Buy it from Amazon

When Captain Dickson (Ice Cube) finds out Schmidt (Jonah Hill) is dating his daughter (Amber Stevens West), he gets very, very angry and takes it out on the buffet. It is the funniest display of Cube's gangsta bravado. If you watch the deleted scenes, it actually went on even longer with Cube destroying the buffet.

Watch the scene (Warning: contains explicit language)

Price: $6 

Buy it from Amazon

Any of the scenes in which Jenna (Keri Russell) makes pies have to be on this list. Jenna makes pies to reflect her mood, so there are sad pies and happy pies, but all are equally delicious. The pie-making at Jenna's restaurant was so tantalizing that they even adapted the film into a Broadway musical.

Watch the trailer (which features several pie scenes)

This movie is the reason this whole list exists. Meg Ryan's Sally made cinema history when she faked an orgasm for Billy Crystal's Harry in the middle of Manhattan's busy Katz's Delicatessen. But it's a fellow customer — played by director Rob Reiner's mother, Estelle Reiner — who seals the deal with a single line: "I'll have what she's having." Every restaurant scene ever since has tried to be as memorable as this one.

Watch the scene