Rose's Cafe

Hi Amanda,
My name is Thomas and I live in San Francisco. I'm also a huge River Phoenix fan. Nancy Savoca wanted to film all of Dogfight on location in San Francisco, but the budget they got for the movie only allowed them to shoot some scenes there, because San Francisco is a very expensive city to film in. Rose's Cafe was actually created for the film and shot on location in Seattle, along with most of the other parts of the movie. So unfortunately Rose's Cafe (as known in the movie Dogfight)does not exist. However, there are several other parts of the film that were shot in San Francisco that really do exist. For instance, the scene in which River and Lili Taylor throw his dinner jacket off the overpass there's a bar next to them called the "Tunnel Top". That is located on Bush Street next to the Stockton Tunnel. There's a scene of them at Powell and Sutter Street getting off a cable car, and there's another scene of them standing in front of City Lights Bookstore in North Beach. My favorite scene in the movie is River running down Broadway Street towards the Bay Bridge after leaving Rose's house. All those places really exist.

and yes, River's tragic death at only age 23 was one of the saddest moments Hollywood has experienced.