11 micro-itineraries for the San Fernando Valley

The oldest remaining Bob’s Big Boy went up at 4211 W. Riverside Drive in Burbank in 1949. Its sign stands 70 feet tall, and its lot fills up with classic cars on Friday nights. On Saturday and Sunday nights, you can get car hop service. For years, writer-director David Lynch had lunch here daily. (The original Big Boy — a burger with two patties — goes for $7.29.) During the day, you’ll see lots of elderly customers under the swooping ceilings of the Midcentury dining room, and the big boy himself lingers just outside the front door like the world’s least-menacing bouncer.  (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

The North Hollywood Arts District, for many years a forlorn commercial strip, has been gathering steam as a bohemian enclave over the last decade, aided by a subway stop and redevelopment dollars. Start with dinner or lunch at Pitfire Artisan Pizza Co., which has a big patio with a fire pit and pingpong table. Then hit a performance (check Deaf West Theatre (5112 Lankershim Blvd., http://www.deafwest.org), winner of many national plaudits, or El Portal Theatre (5269 Lankershim Blvd., http://www.elportaltheatre.com), built as a vaudeville house in 1926 and revived as a three-venue space in 2000. To see what’s on at these and several other local theaters, check http://www.nohoartsdistrict.com. If you have spare minutes, browse the TV star statues (Johnny Carson, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, to start with) in front of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences at Lankershim and Magnolia boulevards. Or get dinner or a nightcap at the stylish Federal Bar, which opened in February in the ‘20s two-story brick building at 5303 Lankershim Blvd.

Pictured: A statue of Johnny Carson in the North Hollywood Arts District  (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Three generations along, the Tapia family keeps the Valley’s agricultural history alive with an 80-acre farm and produce stand in Encino. Tapia Bros. Fresh Produce, which closes in colder months, typically greets spring with strawberries and tomatoes. The family also grows corn, keeps chickens, pheasant and goats, and sells flowers. Once you’ve had a taste and said hello to the animals, cross Burbank Boulevard for the wide-open spaces of the Sepulveda Basin and Sepulveda Dam recreation areas, with lots of grass and nine miles of flat trails that are highly popular with joggers, dog-walkers and kids on bikes. This broad area, north of Encino and south of Van Nuys, was designed to collect water in a major flood. It also includes the Sepulveda Basin Dog Park; Lake Balboa Park; Balboa, Encino and Woodley Lakes municipal golf courses; and the Japanese Garden (6100 Woodley Ave., Van Nuys; http://www.thejapanesegarden.com), a 61/2-acre landscaped haven with a tea room.  (David Karp / For The Times)

Don’t overlook the Warner Bros. studio tour in Burbank. It has no rides, no 3-D presentations, no cotton candy, no spitting dinosaurs. What it does offer is a grown-up look at how TV shows and movies get made, priced at $48 an adult, closed to children younger than 8, and lasting about 21/2 hours. Led by a guide, you typically travel on foot and by golf cart in a group of 12. You browse the fixtures and paintings in the prop shop, perhaps glimpse rooms where backdrops are painted or orchestral scores are recorded, stand in the square where “76 Trombones” was shot in “The Music Man,” step into the courthouse where the last episode of “Seinfeld” took place, sit on the couch at Central Perk, the “Friends” coffee shop, still preserved. If it’s working Hollywood you want to see, this is a better bet than Universal. You wind up at the Warner Bros. Museum, where the bottom floor covers 80-odd years of movies and TV and the top floor covers Harry Potter. Along the way, you’re bound to learn a thing or two about such Warner heroes as Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig, who concluded many a cartoon by saying — well, you know.

Pictured: Central Perk from the TV show “Friends” on the Warner Bros. studio tour  (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)