When filmmaker Kevin Smith worked in a convenience store in Leonardo, New Jersey in the early 90s, listening to an interview on Howard Stern with director Robert Rodriguez and hear him talk about producing the film "El Mariachi" (1993), had an profound impact on Smith's life. As a direct result, Smith's first feature film "Clerks" (1994) took place at his current workplace and also got him out of there.

So I was sitting there in a convenience store listening to that, and I was like, "Wow, that's kind of tight — all you have to do if you want to make a movie, make a film, figure out a story nobody else has told but, like Robert Rodriguez said, work with what you got." I wasn't going to set something in outer space. So I looked around and thought, What do I got? Where can I shoot a movie? I've never seen a less likely location to shoot a movie. God, I hate this job. If only I could turn it into something better. It took me weeks to figure out — Oh, you could shoot a movie in a convenience store. Nobody's ever done that before.