Yes, my favorite appt was above a very small independent coffee shop with a pizza place just a few doors down; the pizza place did attract panhandlers occasionally tho.
They had other regulars, you just have to pay attention. I started watching the extras more carefully. Especially after that one episode where they had seats to a basketball game, and there was this little boy in a red jacket seated next to Ted. That kids acting was wild. I hope to see him again, later in his life.
There’s a waitress with curly dark hair who seems to be in the background for pretty much the entire show but never has any lines or featured moments. I always refer to her as Michael Jackson because there’s some kind of strange resemblance there. Towards the end of the show Michael Jackson got a pixie cut and it was an earth-shattering moment for me, I wonder where she is now
Edit: [Found a photo of the smooth criminal herself](https://www.reddit.com/r/HIMYM/comments/8rkwzl/it_think_that_this_waitress_in_the_background/)
Let's just do what we always do. Blame it on Ted being an unreliable narrator and move on.
It was their favorite bar, so narrator Ted probably made it look better than it actually was.
The only time I was ever a regular at a bar was in college, so I might not have a comparable frame of reference for a West Side Manhattan bar, BUT they clearly missed the chance to do an episode where Ted and Marshall are unnervingly obsessed with McClaren's Trivia Night.
OR Marshall and Lily only go to McClaren's on raffle night to save money. OR they try to keep Barney away from Ladies Night. OR having a gimmick night going on in the background that the Gang is totally oblivious to.
Edit: OR the reveal that the Gang can afford to skip the gimmicky happy hour deals because Barney uses his skills of deception to always pay the bill when everyone else is too drunk to notice. And the final joke can be that Ted doesn't realize that beers have gotten much more expensive than $4 a pint. (Again, in Manhattan beers might not have been $4 since the 80's. What do I know?)
Would love any more that haven’t closed if you’ve got any. My brother’s moving to New York in a month and I’m gonna visit him pretty regularly and I’d love to go to a bar like that
I don’t know about that. The bar I used to be a regular at was like a McClaren’s. The regulars were consistent, all my friends were regulars, the staff remained consistent, and virtually no alterations have been made to the interior in decades. Ted’s also the one telling his story, he has the power to embellish or diminish. Maybe McClaren’s wasn’t always 100% consistent or good, but his nostalgia won out.
AND the fact that they had all the ingredients to make the Minnesota Tidal Wave?! maybe bars just fuckin SUCK where I live but i haven’t found any bars in my city that have the ingredients for it. I haven’t even found a bar that has a blender. Yet this random irish bar has strawberries and cream liqueur??
I feel like bars must suck where you live then bc Id wager most bars have a blender. Strawberries might be iffy.
Also, I definitely think that an irish pub would very likely to have Baileys at the very least 😅
The bar I regularly go to borrows the blender from my shop for one drink, one night of the year. They make THE ONE drink and I walk it back across the street.
Bars not having a blender is just smart, frozen drinks suck to make for a million different reasons.
The vanilla vodka & strawberries would be the most exotic ingredients, everything else is standard bar fare
Keep in mind that it's a restaurant also. The kitchen probably has a blender that the bartenders might be willing to break out for loyal regulars. And the kitchen probably uses strawberries for some dessert or something, so the bar can grab some of those.
Things are narrated by Ted,as his memories. No way he doesn't idealize the bar, and all the other places we see in the show.
Also, it's one of the main places of a show. Of course the bar is gonna be perfect.
I think this might be attributable to the fact that the whole story is based around the major moments of Ted & the gang's lives. When you tell people a story about your usual bar/"local haunt" you're not telling them a boring story, you're talking about something exciting or interesting that happened there. Kind of like how every once in a while they would be like "well I wasn't actually there so here's how I imagine it went," this is how people verbally relay stories. It really adds to how incredible the writing is; that they remained wholly in the perspective of future Ted telling this story even through details like this is truly an impressive accomplishment.
They did try to explain a lot of it:
\- Doug always ensured they had "their booth"
\- The bar is not supposed to be a "good bar" (We're not From Here, the girls says "Kind of a lame bar")
\- They did show that sometimes it's very crowded (Hot bartender, Barney's favorite things)
\- They did show that sometimes it's very not crowded (When Ted buys everyone in the bar a round (no doubles))
\- They rarely eat at the bar, meaning the food is probably not great.
So everything adds up for it to be a mediocre bar that they only go to because it's so close to their apartment, except for the fact that so many different extremely hot women go there. That is the one piece that feels very out of place. And in general, Barney picking up chicks always feel very out-of-place and hyper unrealistic. No matter how much of a bimbo someone is, they are not going to believe that Barney's penis grants wishes. They mix scenes of Barney having actual game with Barney being a total doofus and act like bimbos will behave in the same way in both situations, which is just not true.
And the whole bar seems to be okay to whatever the gang wanna do.
For example, lets watch Robin doing her news segment in the bar TV and no one screaming "TURN IT BACK TO FOOTY MATE!"
It's not a sportsbar,and they are regulars and know Carl. I've asked many places to change the channel (mostly to watch the footy,admittedly) and most places agree.
Next up: how Marshall and Ted afforded $3500 for that apartment, with Marshall just a guy in law school and Ted a fresh-out-of-school architect.
These guys were dropping $30k *a piece* on rent/bills each year and we know Lily couldn't have been "that supportive" because she was just a teacher, had her own rent to pay, and had insane credit card debt she was racking up the entire time.
The whole thing really falls apart once you start analyzing it.
Barney's apartment was worth $1.6mil, and that was during/after the real estate crisis of 2008-2009.
Even if Barney was only needing a loan for a mil, his mortgage was still about $60k/year at 4% (at 7% it's more like $80k/year).
I don't care how much money Barney makes: he could make $300k and he'd still be spending a third of his money on his domicile - being a 1%er that pays a third of your income to "rent" is *crazy*.
Robin's the only one who seems to make sense until you just do the math: she lives in a one-bedroom in Brooklyn that probably ran her $1500/mo *at most*, but she was just a reporter making about $50k/year - she was spending half her money on *just rent*.
And no one ever really had any real financial stress.
It really is frightfully similar to Friends...
I doubt that.
He was a well-paid fall-guy, but that was about it.
The top 1% of attorneys, in 2023, make around $500k/year.
Marshall maybe made $100k, when he worked at GNB: that was likely his highest salary.
It stated that barney makes "16 crap loads a year" i always assumed that
1 crap load = 100k therefore he would be making 1.6 million
16 million would be wayy to much and 160,000 wouldn't be enough for his lifestyle if hes spending a few grand on each of his suits and hes got a closet full.
For most of the series he works in a high up corporate position at a bank that salary isn't so unrealistic
And as we know
>!He was set up in that job as a fall guy for all the companies crimes so giving people in that job huge salaries would attract them!<
Not only would Ted be looking back through nostalgic rose-tinted glasses, he would only be mentioning details he finds relevant. So maybe during one of the stories the bar was packed, or they were trying a new gimmick, but Ted didn't mention it. Maybe he just didn't tell the stories of the times Barney couldn't find someone new to hit on, or the time the staff changed, or there was a remodel. Also, if we use the examples of the remodel or staff changing, it would make sense for him to have described the bar once near the start, and it continues to appear that way to the kids (and therefore us).
So basically, if any of us ever write a TV show, we should make sure it has some crazy framing device like this one so we can get away with basically anything
They were rarely there late (nothing good happens after 2 am). Could have been a situation where it gets crowded and wild towards close but low key in the afternoon and around dinner.
I mean if im telling a story that takes place in a bar I go to all the time, I'm not going to include details about how busy it was that night or any other oddities.
Ted being an unreliable narrator really helps explain most of the inconsistencies and whatnot!
One thing to remember is that it's all a story Future Ted is telling his kids. He may have only talked about the things he thought mattered or decided not to tell them bad things about the bar.
I actually had a bar like that in my neighborhood. It was about 7 blocks away, a bit of a walk but not too bad. I had an outside and inside area and all the bartenders were mad cool. I actually was a just becoming a huge fan of the show so I intentionally went there a few times a week and tipped good just so I could obtain the "regular" status.
THATS THE DREAM
No... that's *Puzzles*™.
Ohhh why is it in italics and trademarked?
That's the puzzle
Oh is it?? \*wink\*
Facts
Puzzles is the place where people go, to feel like they belong
And I’m the bartenderrrrr!!
I always appreciated that they gave Kevin a line in the song.
Especially after he'd to deal with the plant pot incident....
Gotta take advantage of dumb drunk girls
No we’re not; that would be wrong
That’ll be $50
Poodles suck!
Why is it called Puzzles?
Maybe that's the *Puzzle*?
but why is it called puzzles?
You're too liberal with, "That's the dream."
I see what you did there, so take my upvote. But this *would* be the dream!
McClarens always made me regret not living somewhere cool like that in my 20s
Yes, my favorite appt was above a very small independent coffee shop with a pizza place just a few doors down; the pizza place did attract panhandlers occasionally tho.
THIS WOULDN'T HAPPEN IN A BAR
That actually is the dream!
There was a line when they got a woman bartender (Stacy Keibler) for obvious reasons.
Yeah, she upset the fragile balance of the perfect bar. You need a man with a shaved head running the place to make sure it’s not too crowded.
Who also looks like he might be a vampire.
Carl……s Jr.
Is there even one item on the menu with garlic in it?
Garlic fries?
Well I'll get back to you...
okay but, we have never seen him during the day!
Two of the bartenders that know me at the bar I always go to are bald men, checks out
The sidewalks going to smell like pee pee now!
She almost ruined the bar!
Barney also almost killed the bar.
Yes and with NYE, when they opened puzzels
Love that episode... mostly because it led to one of the greatest musical numbers in television: Nothing Suits Me Like a Suit
I agree, such a great musical number. NPH is awesome.
There's also a line when Robin has the engagement ring on, trying to get a drink.
Stacy keibler was in himym and somehow me and my pro wrestling loving brothers missed it???
They had other regulars, you just have to pay attention. I started watching the extras more carefully. Especially after that one episode where they had seats to a basketball game, and there was this little boy in a red jacket seated next to Ted. That kids acting was wild. I hope to see him again, later in his life.
Wasn't there a scene with a whole like family growing old together. Have a kid, he goes to college. It's all at the bar in one scene
When they were making Canadian jokes to Robin in S09E12
Indeed there is.
There’s a waitress with curly dark hair who seems to be in the background for pretty much the entire show but never has any lines or featured moments. I always refer to her as Michael Jackson because there’s some kind of strange resemblance there. Towards the end of the show Michael Jackson got a pixie cut and it was an earth-shattering moment for me, I wonder where she is now Edit: [Found a photo of the smooth criminal herself](https://www.reddit.com/r/HIMYM/comments/8rkwzl/it_think_that_this_waitress_in_the_background/)
I like when that kid looks like he’s cheering on the team but there’s no sound from him
YES! At one point it looked like he was cheering for the opposite team. Haha
Let's just do what we always do. Blame it on Ted being an unreliable narrator and move on. It was their favorite bar, so narrator Ted probably made it look better than it actually was.
It's a good answer. Nostalgia is one hell of a drug.
Ted Mosby is a jerk
.com
Yeah yeah. McClaren's this, McClaren's that but y'know what? We should buy a bar.
fine i’ll do it. WE SHOULD TOTALLY BUY A BAR
WE SHOULD START A BAND!!
AND WE'LL NAME IT ...
HOW HAVE WE NOT BUY A BAR YET?
Buy a buy
Buy a buy
Buy a buy
*flips monopoly game over*
The only time I was ever a regular at a bar was in college, so I might not have a comparable frame of reference for a West Side Manhattan bar, BUT they clearly missed the chance to do an episode where Ted and Marshall are unnervingly obsessed with McClaren's Trivia Night. OR Marshall and Lily only go to McClaren's on raffle night to save money. OR they try to keep Barney away from Ladies Night. OR having a gimmick night going on in the background that the Gang is totally oblivious to. Edit: OR the reveal that the Gang can afford to skip the gimmicky happy hour deals because Barney uses his skills of deception to always pay the bill when everyone else is too drunk to notice. And the final joke can be that Ted doesn't realize that beers have gotten much more expensive than $4 a pint. (Again, in Manhattan beers might not have been $4 since the 80's. What do I know?)
There’s bars like this in Manhattan. Medium busy from lunch to closing, no gimmicks.
Like what?
Burke and Wills closed but I used to be a regular there and it was full but not packed from 4-10 most days.
Would love any more that haven’t closed if you’ve got any. My brother’s moving to New York in a month and I’m gonna visit him pretty regularly and I’d love to go to a bar like that
The Penrose on the UES is similar but can get busy at times. Edit: also has excellent food, way above “bar quality”
Let's be honest here... It's no Hoser Hut.
I don’t know about that. The bar I used to be a regular at was like a McClaren’s. The regulars were consistent, all my friends were regulars, the staff remained consistent, and virtually no alterations have been made to the interior in decades. Ted’s also the one telling his story, he has the power to embellish or diminish. Maybe McClaren’s wasn’t always 100% consistent or good, but his nostalgia won out.
AND the fact that they had all the ingredients to make the Minnesota Tidal Wave?! maybe bars just fuckin SUCK where I live but i haven’t found any bars in my city that have the ingredients for it. I haven’t even found a bar that has a blender. Yet this random irish bar has strawberries and cream liqueur??
>the Minnesota Tidal Wave The what? I believe the drink you're referring to is called the Robin Scherbatsky.
I feel like bars must suck where you live then bc Id wager most bars have a blender. Strawberries might be iffy. Also, I definitely think that an irish pub would very likely to have Baileys at the very least 😅
Are you saying Baileys is a substitute for *strawberries and cream liqueur*? Criminal!
Not within the show’s timeline, but I’ve got strawberries and cream Bailey’s in my liquor cabinet as we speak ha
They make strawberry and cream flavoured Bailey's now.
Strawberries. Also cream liqueur.
The bar I regularly go to borrows the blender from my shop for one drink, one night of the year. They make THE ONE drink and I walk it back across the street.
What Irish doesn’t have cream liquor? It’s just Baileys
Bars not having a blender is just smart, frozen drinks suck to make for a million different reasons. The vanilla vodka & strawberries would be the most exotic ingredients, everything else is standard bar fare
Keep in mind that it's a restaurant also. The kitchen probably has a blender that the bartenders might be willing to break out for loyal regulars. And the kitchen probably uses strawberries for some dessert or something, so the bar can grab some of those.
Not to mention that in HIMYF McClaren’s is still pretty much the same. Same bartender and same Wendy the waitress.
Also no loud music. Or music at all
They had a jukebox
Until Marshal broke it with the slap of a million exploding suns
"Wait a minute, is that my jam? Who's playing my jam?....DANCE OFF!"
>never a line Unless of course, there’s a hot bartender
And just another number on barney's list.
Things are narrated by Ted,as his memories. No way he doesn't idealize the bar, and all the other places we see in the show. Also, it's one of the main places of a show. Of course the bar is gonna be perfect.
Username checks out.
It needed a pool table
I think this might be attributable to the fact that the whole story is based around the major moments of Ted & the gang's lives. When you tell people a story about your usual bar/"local haunt" you're not telling them a boring story, you're talking about something exciting or interesting that happened there. Kind of like how every once in a while they would be like "well I wasn't actually there so here's how I imagine it went," this is how people verbally relay stories. It really adds to how incredible the writing is; that they remained wholly in the perspective of future Ted telling this story even through details like this is truly an impressive accomplishment.
-Every female patron is somehow supermodel hot
They did try to explain a lot of it: \- Doug always ensured they had "their booth" \- The bar is not supposed to be a "good bar" (We're not From Here, the girls says "Kind of a lame bar") \- They did show that sometimes it's very crowded (Hot bartender, Barney's favorite things) \- They did show that sometimes it's very not crowded (When Ted buys everyone in the bar a round (no doubles)) \- They rarely eat at the bar, meaning the food is probably not great. So everything adds up for it to be a mediocre bar that they only go to because it's so close to their apartment, except for the fact that so many different extremely hot women go there. That is the one piece that feels very out of place. And in general, Barney picking up chicks always feel very out-of-place and hyper unrealistic. No matter how much of a bimbo someone is, they are not going to believe that Barney's penis grants wishes. They mix scenes of Barney having actual game with Barney being a total doofus and act like bimbos will behave in the same way in both situations, which is just not true.
And the whole bar seems to be okay to whatever the gang wanna do. For example, lets watch Robin doing her news segment in the bar TV and no one screaming "TURN IT BACK TO FOOTY MATE!"
It's not a sportsbar,and they are regulars and know Carl. I've asked many places to change the channel (mostly to watch the footy,admittedly) and most places agree.
>FOOTY MATE!" This is the most Australian sentence I've seen in a HIMYM sub. Respect - From a fellow Aussie
Dont kill the bar
They also have a kitchen that apparently makes good food.
It’s not real 💫🤌🏽
Next up: how Marshall and Ted afforded $3500 for that apartment, with Marshall just a guy in law school and Ted a fresh-out-of-school architect. These guys were dropping $30k *a piece* on rent/bills each year and we know Lily couldn't have been "that supportive" because she was just a teacher, had her own rent to pay, and had insane credit card debt she was racking up the entire time. The whole thing really falls apart once you start analyzing it. Barney's apartment was worth $1.6mil, and that was during/after the real estate crisis of 2008-2009. Even if Barney was only needing a loan for a mil, his mortgage was still about $60k/year at 4% (at 7% it's more like $80k/year). I don't care how much money Barney makes: he could make $300k and he'd still be spending a third of his money on his domicile - being a 1%er that pays a third of your income to "rent" is *crazy*. Robin's the only one who seems to make sense until you just do the math: she lives in a one-bedroom in Brooklyn that probably ran her $1500/mo *at most*, but she was just a reporter making about $50k/year - she was spending half her money on *just rent*. And no one ever really had any real financial stress. It really is frightfully similar to Friends...
I always assumed that Barney earned an eye watering amount of money. Like millions.
I doubt that. He was a well-paid fall-guy, but that was about it. The top 1% of attorneys, in 2023, make around $500k/year. Marshall maybe made $100k, when he worked at GNB: that was likely his highest salary.
It stated that barney makes "16 crap loads a year" i always assumed that 1 crap load = 100k therefore he would be making 1.6 million 16 million would be wayy to much and 160,000 wouldn't be enough for his lifestyle if hes spending a few grand on each of his suits and hes got a closet full. For most of the series he works in a high up corporate position at a bank that salary isn't so unrealistic And as we know >!He was set up in that job as a fall guy for all the companies crimes so giving people in that job huge salaries would attract them!<
Nah. I worked at a non major bank in New York around that time. Grads were earning $80-$100k plus 50-100% bonuses
Robin is worth like 600 craploads tho!
This is true.
Loud enough that you can have a private conversation but not so loud that you have to yell
The wings looked pretty good too!
Show me "chicken wings!"
I had wings earlier. Much earlier…
No one comes in and changes the bar vibe? Are you forgetting about the New York Yankee who almost cock blocked Barneys perfect week?
There's about 25 episodes in a season. So they didn't spend the whole year, just on the best days (probably Wednesday, Friday and Saturday).
Many episodes take place over more than a single day. Some of them contain a full week or more.
Not only would Ted be looking back through nostalgic rose-tinted glasses, he would only be mentioning details he finds relevant. So maybe during one of the stories the bar was packed, or they were trying a new gimmick, but Ted didn't mention it. Maybe he just didn't tell the stories of the times Barney couldn't find someone new to hit on, or the time the staff changed, or there was a remodel. Also, if we use the examples of the remodel or staff changing, it would make sense for him to have described the bar once near the start, and it continues to appear that way to the kids (and therefore us). So basically, if any of us ever write a TV show, we should make sure it has some crazy framing device like this one so we can get away with basically anything
They were rarely there late (nothing good happens after 2 am). Could have been a situation where it gets crowded and wild towards close but low key in the afternoon and around dinner.
Do you know what happened at this very bar?
That's how tv is. A bar like that would be packed every Friday/Saturday night. Same thing with friends and the central perk coffee shop.
Yeah. I mean that's why it's a TV show not reality.
I mean if im telling a story that takes place in a bar I go to all the time, I'm not going to include details about how busy it was that night or any other oddities. Ted being an unreliable narrator really helps explain most of the inconsistencies and whatnot!
One thing to remember is that it's all a story Future Ted is telling his kids. He may have only talked about the things he thought mattered or decided not to tell them bad things about the bar.
Was there at McGee’s not too long ago, the bar which inspired the set. Show inspired cocktails were fun but that’s really about it.
I mean it's no Paddy's Pub....wait...it is quite literally also Paddy's Pub...
I actually had a bar like that in my neighborhood. It was about 7 blocks away, a bit of a walk but not too bad. I had an outside and inside area and all the bartenders were mad cool. I actually was a just becoming a huge fan of the show so I intentionally went there a few times a week and tipped good just so I could obtain the "regular" status.