Bada bing!
The booth where Tony Soprano and his family sat in the series finale of The Sopranos sold at auction Monday night for a whopping $82,600. The finale’s iconic last scene was filmed at the popular Bloomfield ice cream parlor Holsten’s, which had, until now, seated customers and fans in the booth.
Holsten’s decided to sell the booth because it and the restaurant’s other booths were in disrepair.
The auction lot included both seats, the table and the divider wall with the plaque “Reserved for the Soprano Family.” Not included was the jukebox that Tony famously turned to the Journey song “Don’t Stop Believin.”
There were 238 bids on the piece of TV history. It went up for auction about a week ago with an initial listing price of just $3,000 but quickly skyrocketed.
Holsten’s has enjoyed a lot of fan attention since the series finale aired in 2007, even selling Sopranos-inspired mugs and T-shirts.
Holsten’s said the decision to sell and renovate was a tough but necessary one.
“Please understand that we don’t want to do this. But the integrity of the booths are now compromised,” the owners wrote on Facebook. “They have been repaired many times and this furniture is over 60 years old. Obviously, we do not want to do this, however it has come to a point where they are structurally not safe anymore as a whole and we need to think about the safety of our patrons first.”
Fans flooded social media with their thoughts, with some lamenting the loss of the special seat. “Keep it!!!! It’s a great photo op and brought the company business. People want to sit EXACTLY where Tony sat, not a replica/replacement,” one person wrote on Facebook.
But others said Holsten’s should be celebrated for its longevity in the community, not just its place in TV history.
“Holsten’s is so much more than a Sopranos memory!! For me it is six decades of fond family memories, and countless delicious ice cream sodas (with coffee chip ice cream),” one person commented. “Though the booth was definitely a fun novelty, and the story will continue to be a piece of Holsten’s history, it is not what has made Holsten’s great since 1939!”
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