The famous restaurant booth depicted in “The Sopranos” sold Monday on eBay for $82,600.
The epic set piece from the iconic show was was put up for auction by owners of Holsten’s Ice Cream in Bloomfield, New Jersey. They had previously housed the booth in their ice cream shop and offered guests an opportunity to sit in the exact spot where Tony Soprano, played by the late James Gandolfini, sat to eat his final meal. A total of 238 bids were entered for the booth, according to the eBay listing.
The final bid for this television memorabilia was entered Monday at 7:12 pm.
The lucky bidder will get to take home far more than just the booth itself.
“The booth includes both seats, table, and divider wall with the plaque ‘Reserved for the Sopranos Family,’” the listing read.
The nostalgic set item was a tough one for the owners of Holsten’s Ice Cream to part with. It was a fixture at their location for quite some time, but they eventually had to make the difficult decision to let it go.
“The time has come,” the owners wrote in an emotional Instagram post shared with their 8,815 followers Feb. 29. “All good things sometimes need an upgrade. The famous [Sopranos] booth is getting a much needed face-lift.”
“Please understand that we don’t want to do this,” they added.
“But the integrity of the booths are now compromised. They have been repaired many times and this furniture is over 60 years old.”
They explained the necessity to replace the booth, albeit reluctantly.
“Obviously, we do not want to do this[.] [H]owever 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,” they wrote.
The booth at which the final scene of the final episode of the HBO show, “The Sopranos,” was filmed, is seen at Holsten’s restaurant on June 20, 2013 in Bloomfield, New Jersey. ‘Sopranos’ star James Gandolfini, who played the troubled mob boss Tony Soprano, died at age 51 in Rome.(Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images
