Filmed Locally Severance and the Phoenicia Diner

PHOENICIA — With all the buzz surrounding the return of Apple TV+'s popular Severance on January 17th, those of us who have not caught the program yet may be curious about the hype. For example, two days before the start of the show's second season, the marketing team created a pop-up performance in a busy Grand Central Station. Actors Adam Scott, Britt Lower, John Turturro, Zach Cherry, Patricia Arquette, and Tramell Tillman "worked" in a drab glass-enclosed mock office constructed within New York City's most grandiose train terminal. If, like me, you don't know much about the show, you might be curious just what you're missing, given the elaborate staging of the Grand Central Station promotion and zealous fan base. The psychological thriller follows a group of workers at a shadowy company known as Lumon who have agreed to undergo a brain surgery that separates their work lives from their personal lives known as Severance. There are "innies" and "outies" employed at Lumon. The outies walk into the offices of Lumon and take an elevator down to the windowless "severed floor," at which point their "innie" clocks in. The outies don't remember anything from their mundane workday, while the innies, by contrast, live hellish lives. 

The Ben Stiller-produced Severance has utilized numerous filming locations throughout upstate New York, primarily in the Hudson Valley, including Nyack, Kingston, New Paltz, and White Plains. Anyone planning to dive into the surrealist show in the Mountain Eagle readership area might spot a local landmark early on in the series. On March 9th, 2021, The Phoenicia Diner closed to the public and opened its doors to the Severance production team. The beloved diner was temporarily renamed "Pip's Bar and Grill" for the roughly week-long shoot. The Phoenicia Diner scenes appear toward the end of "Good News About Hell," Severance's pilot episode directed by Ben Stiller, when Mark Scout (played by Adam Scott) has a mysterious and pivotal encounter with a mystery man. 

It's not the first time the renowned Catskills diner has found its way to the screen. 2021's Werewolves Within used the location, and a Chase Saphire commercial featuring location scout Jillian Fisher also utilized the diner. To catch The Phoenicia Diner’s appearance in Severance, look back to the show’s pilot episode.