How I Met the Bar

What would “Friends” be without Central Perk?

Not much.

“Friends” highlighted the late-90s cultural infatuation with the coffee shop. The iconic “Friends” characters spent many an episode lounging on the couches of Central Perk, their neighborhood coffee shop. With an espresso in hand and a newspaper spread across the table, “Friends” visualized the reality off-script.

“Friends” fanatics identified with the tight-knit ensemble and found their own urban coffee shop to recreate the on-screen haven.

What’s today’s Central Perk?

MacLaren’s.

Today, we’ve ditched coffee for booze thanks to TV shows like CBS’s hit sitcom “How I Met Your Mother.”

For those unfamiliar, “How I Met Your Mother” follows a group of five adults living in New York City, trying to navigate careers and relationships.

HIMYM, like many successful sitcoms, makes its core characters easily relatable to viewers. Viewers connect characters to people they know in their lives.

Central to this group friendship is the local watering hole, MacLaren’s.

MacLaren’s is an ordinary bar, complete with the pseudo-pub atmosphere and artery-clogging bar food. By creating a familiar atmosphere, audiences easily think fondly of their own MacLaren’s down the street.

If this is where HIMYM’s writers are connecting with the audience, it reflects our culture’s affection for bar culture.

Just think about our beloved Bloomington.

Many students cherish memories of their friends around a beer-soaked table at Nick’s after a game of Sink the Biz. Think of all the photos that pop up on Facebook and Twitter each Sunday following weekends spent in the bars. Or how about the deals that entice students out on Tuesday nights despite early Wednesday classes?

We can’t deny our love for the bars.

Seeing Ted, Robin, Barney, Marshall and Lily seated at their usual table in MacLaren’s rolling their eyes at Ted’s latest love connects to more than just our liver. It connects to our emotions. Audiences laugh because they can relate to the situation. It’s what makes HIMYM an impressively successful sitcom.

Television, fictional or not, is most successful and influential when it can connect to the audience in familiar settings and situations. HIMYM capitalizes on this by making the bar a central location for the show.

Bloomington is a haven for the bar scene, which makes TV shows like HIMYM a popular Netflix choice for many students. To Long Island—drinking Hoosiers, such a show is legen – wait for it – dary. 

By Bridget Ameche