As the hit 90's show turns 20 years today, a Friends café in China will hand out a free coffee to every customer, to honor the show's anniversary of its second decade since the pilot episode (The First One) was aired in the United States for the very first time.
The Friends café in China, located in Beijing, is an exact replica of the famous Central Perk set that was supposed to be in The Village neighborhood of Manhattan - even if the show was actually filmed in Burbank, California! While the original set is kept at the Warner Brothers lot with the last episode's menu, visitors (and locals) of Beijing can go to the Friends café in China, where they'll get a menu based on the one portrayed in the popular television show.
The Friends café in China features replicas of the entire Central Perk set, as well as replicas of the famous reclining sofas used by characters Joey Tribbiani and Chandler Bing in their apartment. It's only one of the details the Friends café in China has going for itself: there are several other little things around, like a small VHS tape that only spells the word "Monica", a reference to one of the show's episodes.
The NBC show has gathered many fans in the Asian country over the last few years, as it's turned into a popular syndication program in China and is even used to teach young people to get familiar with American slang in English, as a report in Electronic Communications Network (ECN) China said.
New Beijing fans of Friends - some of them as old as the show itself, or even younger - often visit the Friends café in China to remember their favorite television show, and it has also turned into a tourist attraction for Westerners visiting the city. You can read more about this in the website of the United Kingdom's journal The Telegraph.
