Spots From Your Favorite Sitcoms Worth Visiting Today

Dramas might win the awards and critical acclaim, but sitcoms stick with us. Long-running comedies aren’t just shows that we watch as appointment viewing, but as they roll into syndication, they become part of the soundtrack of our lives. We watch How I Met Your Mother while we fold laundry. We catch re-runs of Home Improvement at the doctors’ office. In the case of massive shows like Friends and Seinfeld, we’ve probably spent more time with some of those cast members than some of our own friends and family.

It would make sense, then, that people want to visit the locations that these characters once called home. Many viewers have equally close associations with the restaurants and coffee shops as they do with the characters who passed time there. While the actors have gone on to new projects and left their characters behind, many of the places where they cracked jokes and learned important life lessons can be added to your tourism itinerary. Here are Spots From Your Favorite Sitcoms Worth Visiting Today.

Location: Tom’s Restaurant, 2880 Broadway, New York, N.Y.

Located in Morningside Heights (between the Upper West Side and Harlem) in Manhattan, this restaurant that served as the exterior for Monk’s, the Seinfeld gang’s favorite hangout, which offers the same food you would have expected Jerry, Elaine, and George to eat while they schemed and obsessed about nothing. Though the décor at Tom’s is a little higher end and a lot more Seinfeld themed than your average diner, the food and the service are about as diner-y as they come, for better and for worse.

Location: Ben’s Pizza, 123 MacDougal St., New York, N.Y.

While many of the locations from our favorite TV shows stand out from their less famous surroundings, Ben’s looks like any other pizza shop slinging slices in the Village. Pizza slices are the quintessential cuisine of New Yorkers who don’t have time to wait. Between work and happy hour or between happy hour and the cab ride home, there is a great tradition of pulling two dollars in quarters left over from laundry money out of your pocket and committing carbocide.

Location: Café Grumpy, 193 Meserole Ave., Brooklyn, N.Y.

Few TV locations perfectly match their on-screen vibe in real life. Café Grumpy is exactly the hip, slightly pretentious, incredibly cool spot that you would expect it to be. Yes, they’ve got a dozen different cups of coffee. Yes, the barista might give you a lecture with your latte. While Williamsburg has fully gentrified into the Disney Land phase of its bohemian identity, Greenpoint, where Grumpy’s flagship café is located, still has a bit of that gritty feel that hipsters yearn for. If the G train is delayed (and it will be) and you don’t feel like making the trek, you can check out of one of their five other locations. Be warned, these other locations are in much less hip neighborhoods. You won’t likely see the same cool crowd in Grand Central Terminal that you will in hippest Brooklyn.

Location: In Other Words, 14 N.E. Killingsworth St., Portland, Ore.

The intersectional ally within you will be happy to hear that Portlandia’s Feminist Book Store is actually a feminist bookstore. In Other Words is a “community center, events space, and book store” in Portland that actively enforces a “safer space policy.” In Other Words was opened in 1993 when feminist book store, A Woman’s Place, shuttered. Things haven’t been easy financially for In Other Words either. They have switched locations to avoid rising rents and have increasingly shifted their focus toward community activity as book sales can’t cover all the bills in the Internet age. The store remains one of nine feminist bookshops in the U.S., and the employees, with the exception of an accountant, are volunteers. The store narrowly avoided closure last year thanks to an Indiegogo campaign.

Location: Magnolia Bakery, 401 Bleecker St., New York, N.Y.

The pricey, delicious Magnolia Bakery has been a haven for New York’s movers and shakers when they need the sweet relief of indulging their sweet tooth since they opened their doors in 1996. Though New York’s cupcake craze hit its high water mark in the late ’90s and early 2000s, tourists and locals alike crowd the shop to this day. This isn’t the only exposure that the flagship location has received; Magnolia was also featured in that other great work about young, female professionals, The Devil Wears Prada. For a time, Magnolia was as much associated with the powerful, professional New York woman as the little black dress.

Location: Max’s of Manila, 313 W. Broadway, Glendale, Calif.

Cattleman’s Ranch from Fresh Off the Boat is based on a real-life restaurant that Eddie Huang’s father operated. Huang’s memoir of the same name was the inspiration for the series. Though the original Cattleman’s in Orlando, Fla., was closed when Huang’s parents retired and sold to a national chain, the exterior location from the show is accessible to anyone living in and around Los Angeles. Max’s of Manila is a Filipino chain restaurant specializing in chicken, with locations across the world. Though fried chicken is their signature dish, they have a variety of Filipino cuisine. If you find yourself near the Glendale Galleria and you want to step out of your comfort zone, then Max’s might be worth a shot.

Location: Four N 20, Sherman Oaks, Calif.

That’s right, you could brunch in “the unofficial meeting place of Pawnee’s political elite.” Though the Four N 20 doesn’t serve waffles, the restaurant’s classic diner feel is the perfect setting for Leslie Knope’s favorite comfort food destination. Just because they don’t serve waffles doesn’t mean that they don’t offer an array of comfort food. Four N 20 is known for pies, and their Sunday Champagne Brunch sounds amazing. Just make sure you aren’t looking for that familiar JJ’s exterior. While Four N 20 plays as the inside of the restaurant, the outside of JJ’s is actually located in Atlanta. If you find yourself in the ATL, look around for the Landmark Diner at 2277 Chesire Bridge Rd., if you want to take a look at JJ’s retro storefront in the flesh.

Location: Rosario’s, 2255 31st St., Astoria, N.Y.

Before Red took her spot as queen bee of the Litchfield kitchen, she worked in a Russian restaurant on the outside. Once she got involved with the mob, and her business became far less legitimate, it was only a matter of time before she ended up behind bars. Rosario’s, by contrast, is incredibly legit. The Italian restaurant just off the Astoria-Ditmars subway stop (on the Q/N line) has great sandwiches and a solid pizza slice. Just don’t expect to walk away with a whole pie. Though this is one of the best slices in Astoria, since they work with a small oven, you can only get it by the slice.

Location: Los Angeles City College, 855 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, Calif.

It should satisfy diehard Community fans to know that the show was actually shot at a community college. Many of the exteriors from the show, including those from the famous paintball episode “Modern Warfare” were shot at LACC. Though LACC has served as the Greendale location, the inspiration for the show was actually nearby Glendale Community College (1500 N. Verdugo Rd.). When he was in his early 30s, creator Dan Harmon took Spanish class there in hopes of saving his relationship with his then girlfriend. If you live too far from Hollywood to take a tour of LACC, you can watch this panel discussion with the cast that was held at LACC.

Location: William S. Hart High School, 24825 Newhall Ave. Santa Clarita, Calif.

A number of shows have used a fictional McKinley High as their setting over the years, including The Wonder Years and Glee, but only Freaks and Geeks turned Santa Clarita’s William S. Hart into William McKinley. Not only was the interior of the school used, but the athletic grounds and nearby areas were utilized as well. The iconic opening shot of the pilot, with the Freaks gathered under the bleachers, was filmed between two athletic fields at the school. However, if you don’t see all of your favorite Freaks and Geeks settings at William S. Hart, this is because nearby Ulysses S. Grant High in Van Nuys also played William McKinley from time to time. The memorable baseball scene from “The Diary” and several interior scenes were shot at U.S. Grant. Though we’ll likely never get anymore episodes of perhaps the greatest single-season show of all time, at least we can walk the grounds where it was shot and dream about what might have been.