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Toronto opens permanent ‘Friends’-themed coffee shop
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Warner Bros TV Comedy Friends at The Central Perk cafe on Lafayette street (Shutterstock/Grzegorz Czapski)
W
hile pop-up incarnations have come and gone in cities like New York and London, Toronto has opened a permanent “Friends”-themed hangout that recreates the iconic New York coffee shop.
Ostensibly to skirt possible trademark infringement, the Toronto location doesn’t take the original name Central Perk, but instead opened under the name Central Café.
To replicate the iconic setting, the Toronto café features a reasonable facsimile of the three-seater brown, fabric, tufted sofa, on which characters like Monica, Rachel, Phoebe, Ross, Joey and Chandler would commiserate about their professional and romantic lives while drinking from oversized coffee mugs.
Read also: Stuck in second gear: Chinese fans ponder life without 'Friends'
The setting also includes a Persian-style rug and a pair of armchairs flanking the sofa on either side.
Elsewhere, however, the café seems rather generic and sparse, with a menu that includes run-of-the-mill offerings like turkey, avocado grilled cheese, assorted cakes and specialty coffees with amateurish foam art.
Earlier this year, The Blast reported that Warner Bros. had secured copyrights to the name Central Perk “for coffee shop and café services” sparking speculation that official “Friends” cafes could be coming our way.
This article appeared on the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
