Which NJ spot made this list of top TV locations in every state?

New Jersey has been called East Hollywood by some because of the growing film and television production happening here. There was always great diversity in a small travel area. You could shoot mountain scenes, forest scenes, ocean scenes, rural scenes, suburban scenes and big city scenes here all in one week.

Then came the tax incentives. Then the large sound stages and production facilities being built here.

At one point filming in New Jersey maybe got you B movie projects like “The Toxic Avenger” or gutter TV fare like “Jersey Shore.” Yet over the years you’ve also had movies like “A Beautiful Mind” which won four Oscars shot in part here and the same for the two Oscar-winning “Joker.”

There’s going to be more and more of that quality done here. So when I saw Pop Crush put out their picks for top TV locations in every state I was curious. What would the Garden State be most known for when it came to television?

Then my heart sank. Would it involve the name Snooki and the phrase gym, tan, laundry? Ugh.

But I was not only pleasantly surprised, I have a thing or two to say about what was chosen as New Jersey’s most memorable TV location. So be sure to scroll through the whole list. I’ll give my smug know-it-all opinion on what happened in Jersey’s location at the end.

Holsten’s! Of course it would be Holsten’s in Bloomfield. It would have to be the place where Tony Soprano arguably met his demise. (And yeah, he died. Don’t argue with me.)

“The Sopranos” was a class-act straight from the gutters of the Jersey mob. A show that elevated the art form of television. It raised the bar. Therefore it would have to be Holsten’s.

The tension you felt watching as Tony sat with Carmela and son A.J. waiting for daughter Meadow to freaking just parallel park already was electric. The viewer knew it was the last episode and anything was on the table.

Tony was in good spirits. He was having a nice moment with A.J.. Would David Chase leave it at that? Let you wonder what would be next for them in life?

But the people moving about the place. The guy here. The figure there. You were waiting for it. And it was brilliant because it put you in the nervous, paranoid skin of what Tony felt every single moment of his gangster life. Paranoid. Always searching faces.

Waiting for it.

Then that guy who went into the men’s room. Wearing the Member’s Only jacket. He was the killer. There’s a reason that men’s room was perfectly lined up on Tony’s right flank. Hard to see it coming in his peripheral vision when the killer must have come back out, gun in hand.

Meadow was just hitting the door at Holsten’s. We had just seen her walking up to it. Then Tony’s face looks up at the sound of the bell on the door.

That’s when the screen went blank, something Tony and Bobby talked about at the lake in a recent episode when wondering what it must be like to get whacked, when Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” cut off, and when millions thought their cable went out at the worst possible time.

But then the credits.

And you knew.

You knew he was gone. He was shot in the side of the head by Member’s Only guy as his daughter would have seen the whole thing. I can just imagine a future project where Meadow is speaking of it all these years later. The blood. The horrible screams from his mother and brother. The chaos.

If you see it another way you’re entitled to it. It was the great series finale debate that raged for years. And it happened right there inside Holsten’s, New Jersey’s most famous TV location.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

You can now listen to Deminski & Doyle — On Demand! Hear New Jersey’s favorite afternoon radio show any day of the week. Download the Deminski & Doyle show wherever you get podcasts, on our free app, or listen right now.

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