Waiting at the bar · Midtown Manhattan
McGee’s Pub
Its operator says McGee’s was the inspiration for How I Met Your Mother.
Kids, this is the story of a bar that never existed · CBS · 2005–2014
How I Met Your Mother
The gang
Who’s really in the booth
Two friends from Wesleyan wrote the show from their own New York years. Pick a friend to see who they are based on.
Ted · played by Josh Radnor
Behind Ted: Carter Bays, co-creator
CBS Watch matched Ted to Bays and Marshall to Thomas. Thomas and his girlfriend Rebecca spent the summer of 1997 apart, as Marshall and Lily do between seasons 1 and 2; they married in 2001.
Straight out of Wesleyan, Bays and Thomas were hired to write for the Late Show with David Letterman. They were 21 at the interview. They stayed about four and a half years, turning in material every hour or two: Top Ten jokes, sketches, scripts.
Sources
Wingman
Have you met…?
Ten real places, five true couples. One waits at the bar; introduce it to the place it has a real story with. The right one hits it off. The wrong one gets a polite nod.
Sources
0 introductions made · 0 awkward silences · Couple 1 of 5
Introduce McGee’s Pub to…
McGee’s Pub is waiting at the bar. Who should it meet?
Three strangers at the bar.
Only one of them shares a real story with McGee’s Pub.
Sources
Times Square Hospitality Group
McGee’s Pub
West 55th Street, Manhattan
The pub its operator calls the show’s inspiration, with the mural MacLaren’s copied on the back wall. Pictured: West 55th Street, 2023.
See the pub
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Greenwich Village walking tours
West Village, Manhattan
Live marketplace results for walks of the West Village, where Chumley’s hides on Bedford Street. Check each route.
Live marketplace results · itineraries change
Compare tours
The laugh
Nobody laughed on the night
There was no studio audience during filming. A separate audience watched each finished episode, and its laughter went into the laugh track.
The pilot had 60 scenes, shot over three days. A student who visited in 2009 wrote that the show was shot on Stage 22 of the 20th Century Fox lot, where Ted’s kitchen stayed set up between shooting days.
She found the sets smaller in person, and MacLaren’s the show’s version of Central Park. At PaleyFest 2014 Josh Radnor named shooting on New York Street, the lot’s outdoor New York set, as a pinch-me moment.
Bays and Thomas developed the show under a development deal with 20th Century Fox and sold it to CBS as a spoken pitch.
A working studio lot behind gates. Part of New York Street can be glimpsed from Pico Boulevard; inside only by invitation.
Sources
Last call
Go and find the pieces
McGee’s, Chumley’s, the Ed Sullivan Theater, Wesleyan and the Dolby are open to visit. The Fox lot is seen from Pico Boulevard, and the Paley Center’s old building from Beverly Drive. McHale’s and Fez are gone, and the 75th Street flat is a private home; none of the three is pinned.
Sources
Where it is now
7 places you can visit in New York, Connecticut and Los Angeles, plus two lost bars and one private flat named by their streets.
Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.
Building reference · Public access · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A working pub and restaurant between Broadway and Eighth Avenue. Walk in; the mural is on the back wall.
Building reference · Public access · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A working Broadway television theatre. The marquee and lobby doors are on Broadway; inside only with a show ticket.
West 55th Street in Midtown in 2023: McGee’s street, not the pub itself. CarCai · CC BY-SA 4.0 Midtown Manhattan · 240 West 55th Street, Midtown Manhattan
McGee’s Pub
Its operator says McGee’s was the inspiration for How I Met Your Mother.
A working pub and restaurant between Broadway and Eighth Avenue. Walk in; the mural is on the back wall.
Sources
The Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway in May 2007, home then to the Late Show with David Letterman. Andreas Praefcke · CC BY 3.0 Midtown Manhattan · 1697 Broadway, between 53rd and 54th Streets
Ed Sullivan Theater
Straight out of Wesleyan, Bays and Thomas were hired to write for the Late Show with David Letterman. They were 21 at the interview.
A working Broadway television theatre. The marquee and lobby doors are on Broadway; inside only with a show ticket.
Sources
Stay
A room on the boulevard.
A Hollywood hotel a short walk from where the cast said goodbye.
The Hollywood Roosevelt
The Hollywood Roosevelt
Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles
A 1927 hotel on Hollywood Boulevard, a short walk from the Dolby Theatre where the cast said goodbye at PaleyFest 2014. Pictured: the Dolby, 2015.
Check roomsGo there
Pull up a stool.
The pub behind the mural, a theatre tour, and walks of Midtown and the Village.
Times Square Hospitality Group
McGee’s Pub
West 55th Street, Manhattan
The pub its operator calls the show’s inspiration, with the mural MacLaren’s copied on the back wall. Pictured: West 55th Street, 2023.
See the pubDolby Theatre
Dolby Theatre tour
Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles
Guided tours of the theatre that held the show’s last PaleyFest panel. Check the schedule for days and times.
Plan a tour
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New York TV and film location tours
Midtown Manhattan
Live marketplace results for Manhattan TV location tours. Check which pass the Ed Sullivan Theater and Midtown.
Live marketplace results · itineraries change
Compare toursViator · Ad / affiliate
Greenwich Village walking tours
West Village, Manhattan
Live marketplace results for walks of the West Village, where Chumley’s hides on Bedford Street. Check each route.
Live marketplace results · itineraries change
Compare toursWhat’s on
No dates yet.
Nothing dated for the show is listed at these places now.
No current dated events are listed. Check providers for the latest programme.
Dates, prices, rooms and stock change: confirm with the provider before you travel or buy. A stay or tour is described as a filming location only where the card says so.
The archive
Every place and moment behind this page, with sources.
10 of 10 places · 13 of 13 stories
McGee’s Pub
240 West 55th Street, Midtown Manhattan
The mural
MacLaren’s back-wall mural is modelled on the WPA-era mural at McGee’s.
Have you met…?
A Letterman writer’s bar line, usually tried at McGee’s, becomes Barney’s introduction.
Ed Sullivan Theater
1697 Broadway, between 53rd and 54th Streets
Late night
Bays and Thomas write for Letterman for about four and a half years.
McHale’s
North-east corner of Eighth Avenue and 46th Street
First jokes
Two students on an MTV summer start writing jokes at McHale’s, which lends MacLaren’s its dark.
Chumley’s
86 Bedford Street, West Village
The pilot, typed
Thomas types the pilot script at Chumley’s; its rustic touches go into MacLaren’s.
Fez
The Upper West Side
A surname
A DJ at Fez, Josh Mosby, lends Ted his surname; Fez lends the bar its round booths.
The 75th Street flat
West 75th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue
The flat
Ted and Marshall’s apartment takes its address and peeling paint from the creators’ 75th Street flat.
Wesleyan University
Memorial Chapel, College Row, Middletown, Connecticut
College
Ted and Marshall meet at Wesleyan, as Bays and Thomas did; a T-shirt says so.
The return
The creators talk to a packed Memorial Chapel after the finale.
Stage 22, Fox Studios
20th Century Fox Studios, Century City
Stage 22
New York is built on Stage 22 of the Fox lot and shown to an audience only once finished.
New York Street
Josh Radnor shoots on the lot’s outdoor New York set: a pinch-me moment.
Paley Center, Beverly Hills
465 North Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills
A hundred episodes
Most of the cast celebrate the 100th episode at a sold-out Paley Center.
Dolby Theatre
6801 Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood
The last PaleyFest
The cast, the Mother and the creators fill the Dolby two weeks before the finale.
