Open Letter to Bill Murray: Move to New Bedford Already

Hey, beloved actor and comedy icon Bill Murray.

I'll get right to the point. When are you going to move to New Bedford? Your on-again, off-again relationship with the Whaling City has been charming but it's time to commit. By all indications, you love it here. There's no sense in depriving yourself of that love.

Do you remember when you thanked the guys at Maaco on Potomska Street in 2014 during one of your many must-watch appearances on The Late Show With David Letterman? They painted your old Jeep Wagoneer and you promised them a plug. You have to think the city is special to give it a shoutout during precious TV interview time.

More recently, you've become a bit of a New Bedford restaurant fan. You talked golf with the locals at Cafe Mimo on Acushnet Avenue in 2019. The following year, you waited in the burrito line like any other Bill at Mi Antojo Mexican Restaurant off Route 18.

Your hunger, unbound by geography, has also brought you to some of the SouthCoast's other gems:

First, there was Patti's Pierogis in Fall River in 2019 with Rhode Island-born director Peter Farrelly, Then, you were the life of the party at Turk's Seafood in Mattapoisett in 2022.

You were the founding co-owner of the Brockton Rox baseball team just up Route 24. You filmed Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom over the Massachusetts border in Rhode Island.

These are just the appearances we know about.

READ MORE: 'SNL' Voice Legend Don Pardo's Massachusetts and Rhode Island Roots

What I'm getting at, Bill, is that if you don't find anything you like in New Bedford, there are a ton of other places in our corner of mainland New England where you would feel right at home. You're a man of the regular people, but you'd also be in good celebrity company, with actors Sam Waterston in Mattapoisett, Tea Leoni and Jenny Slate in Dartmouth, James Spader in Marion and maybe Harrison Ford in Westport (we'll believe it when we see photos).

There's still so much for you to do here on the SouthCoast in true Bill Murray style: crash a wedding at New Bedford Whaling Museum, storm the field at a UMass Dartmouth soccer game, finish the Rose Alley Beer Summit in one day, buy a round of Madeira for everyone at the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament, captain a Seastreak ferry to Martha's Vineyard (your other Massachusetts hangout) and whatever else you want to do.

Sure, winter here can be cold and grey and feel like it'll last us the rest of our lives, but New Bedford is no Punxsutawney. If your hit 1993 film Groundhog Day were real, you wouldn't regret spending eternity right here on the SouthCoast.

So, Bill, where are we getting dinner?