Yes, there is a Mystic Pizza!

Here's the exterior of the original Mystic Pizza restaurant in beautiful downtown Mystic Village. The movie "Mystic Pizza" was not actually filmed here, though. Most of the film, including the interior scenes at the restaurant, was actually filmed in nearby North Stonington, CT.

In the second picture, my brother Alberto is taking a picture of the fish in the fish tank inside Mystic Pizza. George Geronimo Gerkie may have been worried about the fish, but they looked all right to Alberto.

Here's the menu board inside Mystic Pizza. I ordered the large house special pizza with the works. I saved the pizza box to use as the gift box for Vincent, and that was a little tricky. The box was nearly thrown away accidentally, but I was able to fetch it back in time. Whew!

 

Here's the fish, George! It's a rather large tank displayed in the window of Mystic Pizza and actually is nearly the same size as the window. Customers can actually sit nearby and eat next to the fish if they don't want to go inside the restaurant. 

Next to the window with the fish tank is a signed poster from the movie "The Craft." Fairuza Balk, who plays Nancy in this film, co-starred with Vincent in an earlier film, "Imaginary Crimes."

Above the counter at Mystic Pizza is their logo, "A Slice of Heaven" in neon. The gift shop nearby sells t-shirts and other souvenirs with this logo.

Here's the 20th Anniversary Movie Trail Map listing the various locations in Connecticut where scenes from "Mystic Pizza" were shot. Unfortunately, copies were not for sale in the gift shop, but I snapped this photo as a memento.

A publicity photo of Vincent D'Onofrio and Lily Taylor from "Mystic Pizza". This photo was displayed next to the movie trail map at the entrance to the restaurant, along with the original movie poster. Above was a large flat screen TV showing the film non-stop. Cool! 

Here's the pizza box I saved from our take-out lunch on July 5, 2010. It was 100 degrees in Mystic that day, so we went back to our hotel and ate there. I knw this box would come in handy later, so I kept it and took it home with me to New York.

My brother the artist-Alberto's pictures

This is called "E's on Down the Road" copyright 2008. This piece was submitted to the NSARC, now NEARC, website (http://www.ne-arc.org/)  for consideration as the artwork for their annual conference pamphlet and also appeared on the ASA online gallery.

"Alvin and the Chipmunks" copyright 2008. This piece also appeared in the ASA online gallery. ASA stands for the Autism Society of America, at http://www.autism-society.org/.

Alberto is standing next to his entry in the 265 Gallery 2010 art contest. This piece is called "The Flintstones" copyright 2010. We visited the 265 Gallery at the Westchester ARC in Hawthorne, New York in May 2010 for their annual Art Show and Film Festival. Alberto had a great time!

Alberto made these spring flowers from construction paper that I posted on the wall in my office at work.

The Happy Easter sign Alberto made and placed on our front door.

An Easter egg Alberto made for me. :)

Our Easter basket with eggs we colored at home.

The coloring book Alberto created for the Autism Expo fundraiser during Autism Awareness Month in April 2010.

Here's the 2009 coloring book Alberto made for the Autism Expo fundraiser for his school.

More Meet and Greet Photos from 7-22-2010

Here' I'm giving Vincent his birthday card and guitar pins. See the anticipation in his face?

I'm holding a signed copy of "Yellow Brick Road", which was signed for me by several of the actors and the director of this wonderful documentary about the Long Island group ANCHOR,  consisting of actors with developmental disabilities who perform one production every year. In "Yellow Brick Road" the group performs "The Wizard of Oz" based on the 1939 film for their 2008 production and one of the actors cites Vincent as one of his influences. I gave the DVD to Vincent as one of his birthday gifts. 

 

George Geronimo Gerkie Farewell 7-22-10

Vincent D'Onofrio Meet and Greet 7-22-2010

Joe's Pub meet and greet photos

I decided before the day of the GGG benefit show at Joe's Pub that I would give Vincent some birthday gifts, albeit belated, as his birthday was June 30 and the show would be on July 22, 2010. During my family's annual summer trip to Mystic, CT in early July, we visited downtown Mystic Village. Unfortunately, the temperature was already near 100 degrees by noon, so we went back to our hotel near Old Mistick Village to cool off. However, I decided to drive to Mystic Pizza myself and ordered the house special pizza to go. After we feasted in our room, I decided to save the pizza box for my gift presentation, and used the shopping bag from our trip to Foxwoods the next day to bring the box with Vincent's gifts to the meet and greet. While at Foxwoods, I stopped by the Hard Rock Cafe and found some great guitar pins that would become part of the gifts for Vincent. I did use some brown wrapping  paper to line the inside of the pizza box before placing the bag containing the gifts inside, as I wanted to hide those pesky pizza stains. I wondered how Vincent would react to seeing the Mystic Pizza box, as I was paying homage to his earlier film "Mystic Pizza", which was one of the first films of his I ever saw. Well, he loved the box and the goodies I had packed inside for him. He even helped me open the box, which I  had to seal with tape to keep the gifts from falling out.

Here are some photos: