5 Television Coffee Shops We’d Love to Hang Out At
In 1971, Starbucks Coffee was founded in Seattle, Washington. By the 1990s, it became a legitimate force to be reckoned with in the American food industry. To be sure, the American love affair with coffee far predates Starbucks, but it indeed played a key part in our shifting relationship with it. Coffee became not merely part of the morning routine, but something far more European. Coffee became something for Americans to do. An impetus to go somewhere for, to meet a loved one or catch up with a friend. Today, even companies like Capital One try to use our cultural relationship with coffee to draw in customers.
It is no wonder that with this new reign of coffee shops that began in the 1990s—and in many ways continues to this day—so too did television sitcoms follow suit. Perhaps the most glaring example of this is Cheers’s famous Boston bar being replaced in its spinoff Frasier by a hip Seattle cafe. The coffee shop, in some ways, though not all, had supplanted the bar as a place to convene with friends and discuss the issues of the day or shoot the breeze. In television, they began to do the same thing. Here are our five favorite television coffee shops that we wish we could go to in real life.
Check out our slideshow below! Do you agree with our list? Be sure to let us know your opinion in the comments!
sitcom coffee shops
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5. Central Perk, 'Friends' (1994 to 2004)
Who wouldn’t want to live in Manhattan, let alone have the money and free time to nearly-constantly hang out in a cafe like the eponymous Friends? With a wealth of cozy couches, Central Perk seems like it would be a fantastic place to spend some time if there weren’t six extremely loud and obnoxious people taking up the best spot every day.
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4. Luke's Diner, 'The Gilmore Girls' (2000 to 2007)
The titular Gilmore Girls sure do love their coffee, but seem to hate to make it themselves. If you turn on an episode of the series, a trip to Luke’s Diner is nearly-guaranteed. Not that they seem to have a wealth of options in Stars Hollow, Luke seems to be passionate about his craft.
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3. Cafe Nervosa, 'Frasier' (1993 to 2004)
It’s no wonder that the American coffee craze began in Seattle, Washington. What better way to spend a day in the perennially rainy city than to cozy up with a hot cup of joe? Niles and Frasier Crane may not have love or familial relationships figured out, but they certainly know how to spend their disposable incomes: espresso.
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2. Monk's Diner, 'Seinfeld' (1989 to 1998)
Sometimes what you really want is an unassuming diner with no frills and endless refills of drip coffee. That’s precisely what the characters of Seinfeld get at their favorite hangout, Monk’s Diner. It’s so famous today that people regularly go out of their way to take a picture of its real-life exterior—actually called Tom’s Restaurant—in the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
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1. The Double R Diner, 'Twin Peaks' (1990 to 1991, 2017)
David Lynch’s infamous attention to detail pays off in spades with Twin Peaks’s beloved diner, the Double R. The home of some “damn good cherry pie” continues to inspire fledgling film fans to this day. Though the town of Twin Peaks is full of dark mysteries, The Double R Diner is unmistakably warm and inviting.
