At Holsten's, where 'The Sopranos' ended, customers dish about a possible prequel

When we last saw Tony Soprano, he was sitting in a booth at Holsten's restaurant in Bloomfield, his family around him, a plate of Holsten's famous onion rings in front of him, and Journey's "Don't Stop Believin' " blasting from the jukebox.

Now, 11 years later, Samantha Ferrara and Chris Beck were both sitting in that very same booth — and both as thrilled as a newly-made wise guy at the news that "The Sopranos" may be back.

Word from Hollywood is that David Chase, "Sopranos" creator, has signed a deal with New Line to create a big-screen prequel, tentatively titled "The Many Saints of Newark."

"I'm really excited," said Ferrara, who had ordered a plate of the very same onion rings that Tony Soprano ate, back in 2007, in what may or may not have been his last supper — depending on your interpretation of the famously ambiguous final episode.

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"Of course we're eating onion rings, because Tony Soprano said they're the best in the state," Ferrara said. "We wanted to sit right where Tony Soprano sat during the season finale. Hearing that there's going to be a prequel is really exciting."

Not much is known yet about the prequel, which will be co-written by Chase and his old "Sopranos" collaborator Lawrence Konner. But according to reports in Deadline Hollywood and Variety, the film would be set in 1967, during the Newark riots, and would deal with tensions between the Italian and African-American communities in the Brick City of the 1960s. It's also said that the film would feature younger versions of such familiar "Sopranos" characters as Livia and Uncle Junior.

What it obviously won't feature is James Gandolfini — the Park Ridge actor who rocketed to stardom as Tony Soprano, but who died in 2013 (another cast member, Frank Vincent of Nutley, passed away last September).

"I had always hoped that they would do a movie with James Gandolfini, but that's not going to happen," said Chris Carley, one of the co-owners of Holsten's.

"The Sopranos" has given Holsten's, the Bloomfield confectionery and diner that's been a town fixture since 1939, much more than 15 minutes of fame. The restaurant still gets plenty of "Sopranos" traffic from the likes of Ferrara and Beck — who just saw the series for the first time, and traveled two hours just to sit in Tony's booth.

"We still get people who come a lot," Carley said. "In the summer, you see them more. They stop off the Parkway and come in, because we're right off the Parkway. We still get bus tours once a week out of Manhattan — a lot of Europeans, who are very excited to see the place. It's one of the stops on the 'Sopranos' tour."

The series was appointment television for eight years, won 21 Emmys and five Golden Globes, and is widely credited with launching cable television's golden age.

The prospect of a "Sopranos" prequel set in the era of the Newark riots was intriguing to Dennis Sparta of Bloomfield, grabbing a bite at Holsten's on Friday afternoon. Like a number of hard-core "Sopranos" fans, he's a longtime Essex County guy who is very familiar with many of the locales in the series. He was also around during the riots.

"We experienced the Newark riots, the gun shots and all that," he said. "We lived right across the river."

As a fan of "The Sopranos," and of mob movies generally, he'd welcome a prequel that showed more of Tony's early years. "Maybe seeing Tony grow up in the neighborhood, who he became friends with, where he lived," Sparta said.

The idea of seeing a young Tony Soprano was also fascinating to Beck. And not just because he's young – 19 – himself.

"I like the idea that we're going to find out where Tony Soprano is coming from," he said. "Because at the beginning of the show, we're just kind of thrust into his business."

One thing a "Sopranos" prequel is not likely to clear up is the series finale itself.

That enigmatic fadeout, which just left Tony and his family sitting in the booth, was intriguing to some, infuriating to others. Whether it was just another moment in Tony's life or the last one, whether that guy we saw going into the bathroom is going to come out shooting (and we all know, from "The Godfather," what to expect when a mobster comes out of a bathroom in a restaurant) is something fans have argued about endlessly.

Ferrara has no doubt. "The guy from the bathroom shot Tony Soprano in the back of the head," she said.

What she'd like to see, even more than a prequel, is a sequel, showing what happens to the family afterward. "It would be interesting to see how the family dynamic changes," she said.