Iconic ‘Sopranos’ booth where Tony Soprano may have been whacked will fetch over $30K at auction
By Isabel Keane, New York Post, Feb. 29, 2024
https://nypost.com/2024/02/29/us-news/famous-sopranos-booth-at-holstens-in-nj-put-up-for-auction/
The legendary ice cream parlor booth where Tony Soprano may or may not have been whacked during the final scene of “The Sopranos” was put up for auction Wednesday night — with bids reaching $32,000.
Holsten’s, in Bloomfield, NJ, is selling the booth as part of a much-needed facelift for the 60-year-old shop, which had been a local mainstay even before the Mafia hit’s 2007 finale was filmed there, owner Chris Carley told The Post on Thursday.
“It’s only the first day, so yeah, we’re kind of surprised ourselves as to where it’s at and where it might go,” he said of the booth. “It still has a couple of days.”
Carley said the piece of TV gangland history has constantly been drawing fans seeking to relive the iconic ending — in which the Soprano family is seen casually dining before the screen cuts to black, leaving viewers forever to wonder what happened to the mob boss.
“We still have people coming in asking to sit in the Soprano booth. We still get bus tours on Saturday and on-location tours. Over the summer you’ll see people taking pictures outside and people taking pictures of the booth,” Carley said. “It’s not the frenzy it was when it happened 17 years ago, but it’s still quite a popular attraction.”
Whoever wins the auction, which ends on Monday, will take home both seats, the table, the divider wall, and the Soprano family plaque, which reads “This booth reserved for the Soprano family.”
Many fans of the show were sent into a tizzy when news of Holsten’s renovations was shared on social media Wednesday night, with many urging the business not to make any changes.
“There’s a certain percentage of people who don’t want us to change anything,” Carley said of the parlor, which has been serving classic ice cream sundaes and shakes since 1939.
Carley said that he and his partner Ron Stark paid the utmost attention to the details of the new booths, ordering replacements that have identical woodgrain and the same color table tops.
“Everything’s going to be the same,” Carley said. “Actually if we didn’t say anything and just did it, most people wouldn’t recognize that we had switched them. That’s how exactly the same it’s going to be.”
The business noted on social media that the television-featured set was over 60 years old and had been repaired “many times.”
Holsten’s owners have taken similar precautions during other renovations to maintain the shop’s integrity, like keeping the layout the same and not adding additional booths — despite being a bustling business even before it was featured on the HBO hit.
“Believe me, we appreciate everything ‘The Sopranos’ has done for us,” Carley said. “I mean, we had a very good business before, but it just made it better. We survived a pandemic, and you know, people continue to support us, buying our ice cream and eating our cheeseburgers.”
🐪🗻 This has been an Escape From Egypt moment on DNTCCC in honor of the former Escape from Egypt channel on the Disqus channel network 2018-2019 with 34K followers and was the absolute weirdest, wackiest and strangest news channel ever on Disqus !🐪🗻
Be sure to like this page and follow us on
https://disqus.com/home/forum/definitely-not-the-chit-chat-channel-blogspot-com/
🐪🗻 This has been an Escape From Egypt moment on DNTCCC in honor of the former Escape from Egypt channel on the Disqus channel network 2018-2019 with 34K followers and was the absolute weirdest, wackiest and strangest news channel ever on Disqus !🐪🗻
Be sure to like this page and follow us on
https://disqus.com/home/forum/definitely-not-the-chit-chat-channel-blogspot-com/
No comments:
Post a Comment