Best Fictional Bars and Restaurants

The Peach Pit – Beverly Hills 90210

The Peach Pit is amazing because of its chameleon nature, rendering it homey diner by day and totally kicking rock club when it becomes The Peach Pit After Dark. The diner is the perfect setting to discuss the eternal teen drama of two girls wearing the same dress to the Spring Dance.  But then if you’d rather rock out to something a little harder than the fast-talking Laverne (aka Brenda Walsh in pink glasses) lip-syncing to “Its My Party,” you can always catch a Color Me Badd or Collective Soul show next door while your friend OD’s in the bathroom. The best part about The Peach Pit is of course kindly and sarcastic saint of an owner Nat who’s always there to give the kids a job and some earnest advice…or in more dramatic soap opera fashion enter into an unwise business partnership with Dylan and walk Donna down the aisle. You know, normal boss stuff.

MacLaren’s Pub-How I Met Your Mother

MacLaren’s is that magical perfect bar TV bar that never gets too loud for conversation, but is always fully popping with interesting people and adventures. I know I’m getting old because every time I watch Barney try to pick up a girl speaking only Dolphin or the gang  goes rounds making their best Canadian sex position jokes (my favorite is the Reverse Rick Moranis), all I can think about is how nice it would be to find such a quiet, well lit bar. Preferably a bar directly under my apartment where the bartenders know me so well they not only chase randoms out of my favorite booth, but trust me to just get back behind the bar and run the place in a pinch…despite a litany of past untrustworthy behavior like boogie boarding down the stairs. Is that too much to ask?

The Max-Saved By The Bell

So we can all agree The Max is actually on campus right? That Bayside is just so much cooler than your average school that the cafeteria is really a bitchin’ juke joint run by a magician? After all the place is constantly overrun with high-schoolers, it’s not like you ever see a single other adult wander in and try to get a table. Then again maybe they’re scared off by the constant barrage of charity benefits, school plays and dances happening at any given moment.  Not to mention all the times the gang uses the Max to hold some sort of private club or practice, it’s almost always dance practice…Slater does love himself a unitard.

Paddy’s Irish Pub-It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Paddy’s Pub is like that really hip, underground spot you drag your friends to ironically to watch the train wreck. Sure sometimes (usually) the waitress double drops the bill or you show up to find a Prom pre-party filled with drunk teens or God forbid you wander into the secret Russian roulette game in the basement. And sometimes the bar is just left swinging open but nobody seems to be working…or even present.  But if you’re lucky, you just may happen to roll in on the day they screen the highly controversial Die Hard 5. Or the day they throw an amateur wrestling match for the troops and debut the hilarious Birds of War themes song. Then again you may have the grave misfortune to be present when the bar is taken hostage by the sweaty and incestuous milk-loving McPoyle clan…so maybe it’s not really worth it after all.

Central Perk-Friends

More than the 90’s-tastic hairstyles and baby tees, Friends will end up being most dated by the steady stream of scenes in a coffee shop with absolutely zero laptops in sight. Central Perk is a laid back mecca of comfy couches and cappuccinos, a welcoming place to while away the afternoon with a group of — ahem, friends — talking high school stories, dating mishaps and dinosaurs with nary an employee urging you to order anything or move along and let some other patrons have the big couch, for god’s sake it’s been 5 hours. Unfortunately the coffee shop you’re more likely to find yourself in is the cold, quiet, store with hard chairs and tables like desks for people to type away in silence and glare at the boisterous group laughing in the corner.

Arnold’s/Al’s Drive-In-Happy Days

The original in 70’s produced 50’s nostalgia, the Happy Days Drive-In will always hold a special place in America’s heart.  And for good reason, it was the heart of the community. The local watering hole where you were guaranteed to see everyone in town and whatever interesting strangers who happened to blow through. Arnold’s, then later, Al’s, was the backdrop for every birthday, first date and dance in Milwaukee. Not to mention the historic setting for man’s first contact with Aliens and the very first and only literal shark jump in television.

Café 80’s – Back to the Future Part II

50’s diners are just so played out. I can’t’ wait until 2015 when not only do we get flying cars and holographic movie theaters, but apparently overnight all the boring Ruby’s and Mel’s will turn into robot-run 80’s nostalgia machines. Seriously I can think of nothing I want more than to order a Pepsi Perfect from a floating TV screen bearing a stuttering Ronald Reagan.

The Bronze – Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Another fictional establishment I’d love to frequent, and not just because partying with the Scoobies is literally my biggest dream come true, but because nothing like this place actually exists in the real world. In a show about teenagers battling with demons, witchcraft and one apocalypse after another, the hardest thing to suspend disbelief over is the freaking awesome all ages dance club that serves the high school crowd and adults simultaneously. A live music venue with magical acoustics to allow quiet conversations of both romantic and threatening natures while the band is playing ten feet away. A stage that boasts local favorite High School garage band Dingoes Ate My Baby one night and Aimee Mann, Nerf Herder or Bif Naked the next. Dancing at The Bronze says something about you, it’s how we knew immediately that Season 2 Buffy was a little more jaded when she casually played with Xander’s heart or how close Willow and Tara had become when their tender slow dancing caused them to levitate with happiness. Though it was almost always infiltrated by evil gangs of vampires and you had a 50% chance of being killed there, that’s kind of part of the fun. As always Cordelia explains it best, “The Bronze. It’s the only club worth going to around here. They let anybody in, but it’s still the scene. It’s in the bad part of town.”

Cheer’s – Cheer’s

I mean, not to be totally on the nose but who doesn’t want to go where everybody knows your name? After all, that kind of camaraderie and acknowledgement is probably what kept half of those characters from killing themselves. It’s great to know that even if your life is so depressing you take to drinking away your failed marriage(s) or dwindling career, there’s always some fellow barflies just a few feet away to trade quips with and distract yourself until you have to go home to your mother.

Mos Eisley Cantina – Star Wars

Because though old Ben Kenobi meant it as a warning, being told “you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy” just makes the place sound like a stellar hangout.  I mean, it’s an exotic space saloon where you could contract the famous rogue Han Solo (and his magical ship that somehow made the Kessel Run shrink in size) or just bop along to the super catchy jazz stylings of Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes. Man I hope they just play that one hit over and over.  It’s basically like the Wild West in there, you can openly slice someone’s arm off with a light sabre or shoot a bounty hunter completely unprovoked and apparently nobody bats an eye. Best of all droids aren’t allowed inside, so you can finally get some peace and quiet if you happen to have been traveling with a most neurotic and anxious protocol droid who seems to believe being fluent in over six million forms of communication means he should always be dithering, loudly. – AS