Tony’s Booth from the ‘Sopranos’ finale sparks an online bidding war
Tony Soprano puts a quarter in the jukebox to play “Don’t Stop Believin'” and orders onion rings for the table. His wife and son join him as his daughter struggles to parallel park outside. Every time a customer arrives, a bell sounds, increasing Tony’s fear: Will the next person who walks through the door kill him?
What happens next has kept fans guessing ever since the final scene of “The Sopranos” abruptly switched to black in 2007. It’s also energized some of them enough to offer tens of thousands of dollars for the food stall where the much-dissected sequence was filmed.
Holstens in Bloomfield, NJ, which is preparing for a renovation, has put its burgundy booth and yellow Formica table top up for auction on eBay on February 28. Chris Carley, co-owner of the ice cream shop, set the opening bid at $3,000, hoping to get $10,000 for it to cover some of the estimated $60,000 cost for a new floor and new stalls.
Within 24 hours the price had risen to $52,000. By Monday afternoon, there had been more than 230 bids, pushing the price above $82,000.
The auction ends on Monday just after 10 p.m.
The winning bidder will receive the stand, the table, the partition wall and the family sign on which the seats are reserved for the Soprano family. (Not included: the jukebox, which was added by the film crew.) Buyer is responsible for pickup.
Holsten’s opened in 1939 as Strubbe’s ice cream parlour and eventually expanded to include dinner costs. The stand has been in Holsten’s dining room for more than 50 years, Mr. Carley said, and after decades of wear and tear — in more recent years by hordes of “Sopranos” fans — it was time for a reboot.
“It’s just time to do it,” Mr. Carley said. “It’s not something we took lightly.”
Although Holsten’s is known for its homemade ice cream, it has done just that embraced his celebrity status over the years, promoting the Soprano-famous onion rings and matching merchandise. David Chase, the creator and executive producer of “The Sopranos,” ordered the onion rings when he had lunch there a month before filming, the story goes.
But at its core, Holsten’s is a “good, old-fashioned” restaurant where “we know people by their first names,” says Mr. Carley, who has worked there on and off since he was 14. the store, he said, and became part owner in 1980.
“This place has been a part of my life for about 40 years,” Mr. Carley said. “I’m proud that it has continued to flourish.”
“The Sopranos” was filmed at Holsten for three days in March 2007 with James Gandolfini, Edie Falco and Robert Iler in the booth, and then another two days for reshoots with extras, Mr. Carley said. He remembers trying to park Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who played Tony’s daughter Meadow, for eight hours.
“I’m thinking, how many times can you do this?” said Mr. Carley, laughing. “It was a great experience for us.”
The attention the stand — and Holsten’s — has received over the past week is close to what it was like when the last episode aired, Mr. Carley said. Fans regularly came in to dine in the booth or pose for photos. They also took the restaurant’s laminated menus, one of which fetched $4,150 on eBay, co-owner Ron Stark told The New York Times in 2007.
After Mr. Gandolfini died suddenly of an apparent heart attack in 2013, the stand became a memorial. The restaurant immediately closed the stand and hung a “reserved” sign, “out of respect,” Mr. Carley said. For two weeks, fans left cards and flowers on the stand, which Mr. Carley later gave to Mr. Gandolfini’s son.
Mr. Gandolfini “was such a nice guy when he was out of character,” Mr. Carley said, recalling how the actor came behind the restaurant grill and asked, “What do you have for dinner?”
Like many fans of the show, Mr. Carley thought his television was broken when the finale abruptly appeared on a black screen. Although the scene was filmed in his shop, he had no idea what to expect. Still, Mr. Carley has his money on Tony’s living expenses, which he will see another day.
Holsten laid a new floor about three months ago, removed all the old cabins and replaced them. The cabins were replaced this week; the Formica tops creaked and the cushions, like the ones Tony and his family were sitting on, sank. The new ones are from J&H Dinettes and Upholstery in Freehold, NJ
Holsten’s and “Sopranos” fans don’t need to panic. The color scheme will be the same, “just a little brighter,” Mr. Carley said.
“We want to give back exactly what we took out,” he said. “When people come into the store, they will have a hard time noticing the difference.”