Today we go retro and have to talk about Mystic Pizza, a 1988 dramedy starring Julia Roberts as Daisy Arujo, a Portuguese-American woman in Mystic, Connecticut, who works in her family’s pizza restaurant: Have you ever wondered where Donald Petrie and his crew decided to shoot this film?
If you’re not familiar with the plot, we’re not going to spoil it entirely for you. What you should know is that in Mystic Pizza, Daisy, and her two teenage friends go through the ups and downs of love, early adulthood, and working at a pizzeria, hence the movie’s name. It was directed by Donald Petrie and co-starred Annabeth Gish, Lili Taylor, Vincent D’Onofrio, Adam Storke, Connie Britton, and Matt Damon debuted as an actor in this movie as well.
Mystic Pizza Filming Locations
Mystic Pizza, as stated earlier, tells us about the life of Portuguese immigrant Daisy Araujo and her sister Kat and their best friend Jojo Barbosa. These three Portuguese-American immigrants are fresh out of high school and work as waitresses at a local pizzeria called “Mystic Pizza”. In the show, we see lots of exterior locations, and we’re going to break them down for you.
Mystic Pizza kicked off shooting in mid-October 1987 across six weeks in the city of Mystic, Connecticut, and surrounding cities, and while there’s an actual Mystic Pizza pizzeria, that film wasn’t shot there because the place was too small, and Donald Petrie and the producers couldn’t agree with the pizza parlor’s owners to set up shop there, so they took it to another city outside of Mystic.
All in all, Mystic Pizza was filmed between Connecticut and Rhode Island, and it provided a great experience for the cast and crew, and in the following lines, you’ll see where all that movie magic took place.
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Mystic, Connecticut
Mystic was the perfect place to shoot this movie, and it features prominently in many of the scenes with its beautiful coastline and charming downtown. The most memorable location is Mystic Pizza itself. As stated earlier, the movie wasn’t shot at that pizzeria, but if you’re interested in knowing the real place, it’s located at 56 West Main Street.
And while the interior of Mystic Pizza wasn’t shot exactly at the real Mystic Pizza, the exteriors were filmed on Main Street in downtown Mystic with its colonial-style buildings and brick sidewalks. Mystic’s Mystic Bridge is also an iconic spot where one of the scenes was shot on location, and the seaport, as well as the Planetarium, are featured in this movie.
Rhode Island
While the story is centered around Mystic, Connecticut, other filming locations included Rhode Island’s coastlines, which were used for exterior shots that include those retro-stylish seaside locations in which we see the girls talking and the ambiance in scenes.
Stonington, Connecticut
From Rhode Island, we drive back to Connecticut, in Stonington. It is here where they actually shot the interior pizzeria scenes from Mystic Pizza. The current place is the New England Sailing and Science Foundation located on Water St., a few other scenes were shot on location on Water Street, including the one where Bill and Jojo talk about all the stuff that’s happened to them.
Moreover, there’s a scene filmed at the now defunct Skipper’s Dock Restaurant that posed in the movie as the Mystic Harbor Yacht Club, where Charlie and Daisy go out for the first time. Also, in Stonington, the cast and crew filmed a few scenes at a bar called Zack’s Bar and Grill that in the movie stands in as the Peg Leg Club, and that is located on North Main Street number 201.
It was between these three main locations that Donald Petrie managed to use Hollywood magic to recreate a now-classic romantic comedy that still makes us hungry for pizza and warm and fuzzy inside.
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