The Sopranos ran from 1999 to 2007, won 21 Emmy Awards and is widely credited with launching the Golden Age of Television. Without it, by most credible accounts, there is no Breaking Bad, no Mad Men, no Succession. It also made northern New Jersey feel like the most compelling place on earth for eight years, which is an achievement that should not be underestimated given that it is northern New Jersey.
The show filmed almost entirely on location across Essex County and the surrounding suburbs, which means the world Tony Soprano inhabited is largely still there, still recognisable and largely accessible to anyone willing to make the trip. Some of it has changed. Some of it is gone. But enough remains to make a full day's pilgrimage not just feasible but genuinely affecting for anyone who spent any serious time with the show.
A car is essential. This is not a walking tour. New Jersey's public transport system is not equal to the task.
Location 01Satin Dolls — The Bada Bing, Lodi
The exterior and some interior scenes of the Bada Bing — Silvio Dante's strip club and Tony's de facto office away from home — were filmed at Satin Dolls, a real gentlemen's club at 230 Route 17 South in Lodi, New Jersey. It is still open. It looks exactly like it does on screen. The exterior is so recognisable that visitors have been stopping here for photo opportunities since the show first aired in 1999.
You can go inside. There are Sopranos photographs on the wall. New Jersey law prohibits the topless dancing that was depicted in the show, which is either a relief or a disappointment depending on your perspective and why you came. The onion rings, which Tony famously declared the best in the state during an early episode, are not on the menu. This is a genuine missed business opportunity.
Worth visiting: absolutely yes. This is the single most iconic exterior shot in the show's run and it delivers on arrival.
Location 02The Satriale's Site, Kearny
Satriale's Pork Store at 101 Kearny Avenue in Kearny, New Jersey was the set facade built by HBO for the show's fictional mob butcher shop — the place where Tony and his crew conducted business, consumed quantities of gabagool, and occasionally conducted the kind of business that required a large freezer. It appeared from the second episode onwards and became as central to the show's visual identity as the Bada Bing.
The facade is gone. The structure was demolished after filming ended. 101 Kearny Avenue is now a regular block with nothing distinguishing about it. Fans still visit, and the street context — working-class New Jersey suburbs, exactly the milieu the show portrayed — retains a certain atmosphere. But be realistic about what you will see. This one is for the committed pilgrim only.
Practical note: For a Sopranos-adjacent butcher shop that is actually open and operational, Centanni's Meat Market at 815 2nd Avenue in Elizabeth appeared in the pilot episode in the role that Satriale's would take over for the rest of the series. About 30 minutes south of Kearny via I-95.
Location 03The Soprano Family Home, North Caldwell
Tony Soprano's house is at 14 Aspen Drive in North Caldwell, New Jersey. It is a private residence. People live there. It is not a tourist attraction and the residents have not opted into being one. Drive past slowly, recognise it from the street, take a discreet photograph and keep moving. Do not stop in front of the property. Do not walk up the driveway. Do not knock. This guidance is offered by every Sopranos location guide ever written and is worth repeating because the temptation, apparently, is real.
The house is immediately recognisable from the exterior shots used throughout the series — the driveway where Tony collected the newspaper in his bathrobe, the garage, the general suburban grandeur that established the show's central tension between the domestic and the murderous. North Caldwell is a quiet, affluent suburb and the house sits in that context exactly as it did on screen.
Location 04Holsten's Ice Cream, Bloomfield
Holsten's is a family ice cream parlour and chocolate shop at 1060 Broad Street in Bloomfield, New Jersey, that has been open since 1939. It was the location for the series finale's final scene — Tony sitting in the booth, the bell above the door, the cut to black. That scene generated more critical analysis than almost any other moment in television history and the booth where it was filmed is still there, still functioning and still serving ice cream.
Holsten's acknowledges its television history warmly. The booth is identifiable. The onion rings are on the menu, which puts Holsten's ahead of the Bada Bing on practical nostalgia delivery. If you are making a day of the locations, finishing at Holsten's has an obvious thematic logic to it. You sit in the booth. You order onion rings. You wait for the bell above the door. Nothing happens. This is either disappointing or exactly right, depending on how you read the finale.
Location 05The Pulaski Skyway and the Opening Credits Route
The opening credits sequence of The Sopranos follows Tony driving from New York through the Lincoln Tunnel and across northern New Jersey to his home in the suburbs — passing industrial landscapes, overpasses, diners, motels and the general texture of the state that the show made iconic. The Pulaski Skyway, which carries the credits sequence towards its conclusion, is a genuinely dramatic elevated highway over the Passaic and Hackensack Rivers that looks exactly as it did on screen.
Driving this route is one of the more unexpectedly moving things a Sopranos fan can do. The New Jersey that Tony drove through every week for eight years is still there, still looking like itself, still carrying the weight of everything the show put on it. It takes about 45 minutes from the Lincoln Tunnel to North Caldwell. Do it last, heading home, with the soundtrack on.
Planning Your Sopranos Day
- Start at the Lincoln Tunnel exit in New Jersey — follow the opening credits route north towards Lodi.
- Satin Dolls (The Bada Bing) — 230 Route 17 South, Lodi. Worth going inside.
- Satriale's site — 101 Kearny Avenue, Kearny. Manage expectations.
- The Soprano house — 14 Aspen Drive, North Caldwell. Drive-by only. Be respectful.
- Holsten's — 1060 Broad Street, Bloomfield. Sit in the booth. Order the onion rings.
- Sopranos Sites Tour — New Jersey → Covers 20+ filming locations in a single day including the Bada Bing, the Soprano house and Holsten's.
- Fly into Newark Liberty International — the most logical airport for this itinerary and also the most thematically appropriate.
Staying in New Jersey
✈️ Getting there & staying
Newark and the surrounding suburbs have a wide range of accommodation. The show's locations are spread across Essex County and the Route 17 corridor, so staying centrally in the Newark area gives you reasonable access to all of them. New York City is also a perfectly viable base — Manhattan is 20 minutes from the Lincoln Tunnel — and adds the option of a Sopranos-adjacent New York day covering the NYC scenes.
The show was set in New Jersey and the trip is a New Jersey trip. It is worth committing to that. New Jersey is not what people who have never been to New Jersey imagine it to be. The Sopranos, among its many achievements, made this argument compellingly for eight years.