Does life imitate art or does art imitate life? Well, when it comes to Fast and Furious movies and the people who love them, the line between movie and reality seems to get a bit blurred. And you know what? I totally get it.
The first Fast and Furious movie is shot all over the greater Los Angeles area. The Toretto house, for example, is a real house located in Echo Park. So is Toretto’s Market & Cafe, where the infamous tuna sandwich conversation takes place. In reality, it’s a historic clapboard bodega called Bob’s Market.
Actor Jack Wagner lives near Bob’s Market and uploaded a few photos to his personal Twitter recently of people stopping by Bob’s Market to visit.
I know that the Fast and Furious movies are largely very silly and shouldn’t be taken seriously, but their relationship with the automotive community is undeniable. Especially The Fast And The Furious, the first film of the franchise. Of the eight (haha yeah there are eight of these things!), it is by far the most honest and down-to-earth.
Which is why I get it when I see photos of car people going to visit those now-immortalized spots. It goes beyond just visiting a place where a movie was shot once. You get to feel closer to a franchise that splashed something you loved—cars—across millions of screens across the world.
And yes, visiting these sites is absolutely, 100 percent weapons-grade nerd behavior. But in terms of all the other types of behavior you could pick up from watching the movies (street racing, bank robbery, shootouts with the police), I’d say merely visiting is the tamest and most preferable.
(And yes, I have been to Neptune’s Net more times than I care to count.)
Keep it up, friends. Just don’t be a pest and get in anyone’s way.