Bada Bing!

Being a topless go-go bar selling alcoholic drinks, Bada Bing represents a deviation from reality insofar as real-world New Jersey state law prohibits topless or nude dancing in establishments that sell alcohol.[8] However, New Jersey strip clubs without liquor licenses may opt to permit patrons to bring in their own alcoholic beverages, while full bars with liquor licenses are allowed to feature non-topless or non-nude go-go dancers (i.e. "bikini bars").

The show frequently used the club for sexposition scenes.^[9][10] Reviewer Paul Levinson described the Bada Bing, and its background of nudity, as a key setting for the series:

The Sopranos's brilliant solution is to situate most of its nudity in the Bada Bing! strip joint run by Tony Soprano's aide-de-camp, Silvio Dante. The setting is an eminently logical place to frequently find Tony and his crew discussing business, and the naked women need no further motivation than that they are dancing in the club...Bada Bing! is an ideal locale – doing for The Sopranos what the diner did for Seinfeld, and the bar owned by Munch, Meldrake, and Bayliss did for Homicide – but with a physically illicit explicitness that gives sexual energy to whatever other story is unfolding.^[11]

Key scenes

The Bing is where:

• Tony Soprano and his crew find out Jackie Aprile Sr. has died from his illness. One of the dancers (played by Theresa Lynn) vows never to forget where she was the day Jackie died.
• Tony Soprano cancels the hit on Don Hauser, his daughter's soccer coach, and an uncovered statutory rapist.
• Tony and Sil agree to have
  Richie Aprile killed but are preempted by a deadly domestic dispute involving Richie and Janice
  .
• Big Pussy
  whacked if they found out he was wearing a wire for sure.
• Ralph Cifaretto
  beats his pregnant girlfriend Tracee, a Bing dancer, to death in the parking lot just outside the building. He gets beaten in turn by Tony for "disrespecting the Bing".
• Johnny Sack
  informs Tony that he is prepared to reconcile with Ralph following an insult to Sack's wife, in turn allowing Tony to cancel a planned hit on him.
• Christopher Moltisanti threatens Tony with a gun for allegedly having an affair with his fiancée, but he has already emptied his gun of bullets by shooting Tony's old SUV in the parking lot, a burgundy 1998 Chevrolet Suburban, which Tony presumably is back to driving since totaling his white Escalade.
• Tony makes the case for not killing
  Carlo Gervasi
  .
• Paulie has a vision of the
  Virgin Mary
  hovering over the dance floor, leading him to reconcile with his aunt and adoptive mother Marianucci.
• Silvio Dante is shot several times in the parking lot on an ordered hit from Phil Leotardo. Patsy Parisi accompanies him but flees on foot. Silvio is hospitalized in critical condition.
• Matthew Bevilaqua and Sean Gismonte
  desperately and unsuccessfully try to gain the attention of Tony Soprano, angering him by openly boasting of criminal activities in his presence in the washroom.
• Silvio Dante arrives at the club to open it in the morning and finds Christopher Moltisanti, coming down from a heroin binge vomiting heavily in the toilet, his hair in the toilet water. He later brings this up at Christopher's rehabilitation intervention.

All interior and exterior shots of the Bada Bing were filmed on location at Satin Dolls, an actual go-go bar on Route 17 in Lodi, New Jersey.^[12] Occasionally the neon "Satin Dolls" logo is visible on an interior wall of the club. The office scenes, however, were filmed on a sound stage at Silvercup Studios.

The popularity of the series and the notoriety of the Bada Bing! resulted in economic benefits through tours and souvenirs for the real-life club.^[13]

After the series finale, the owners of the real bar decided to auction off the furnishings at the club and replace them with new ones.^[12][14]

The club's name has inspired a coffee shop chain in New Jersey called Bada Bean and a darts team in Los Angeles named "FADA Bing!".^[15][16]

See also

• Satriale's Pork Store

References