Central Perk Café- Where Friendships Start and Grow.docVIP

Central Perk Café: Where Friendships Start and Grow 　　Starbucks， Costa Café， McCafé and Central Perk Café… All of these cafés have something in common ?they have their origin from the West. But while the first three cafés exist in the real world the Central Perk Café was a fictional set used in the famous American TV-show“Friends”. The 35-year-old owner Du Xin who calls himself the Chinese Gunther is a big fan of the TV-Show “Friends” and wanted to create a place where he could share his passion about the TV-show with other Friends fans： “I wanted to gather a lot of ‘Friends’-fans in a place where we all could sit and talk about the series. I call it a‘Friends’-club，” Du Xin explains. In 2010 he opened the first copy of the café from the show in Beijing and because of its great success he expanded his company in 2012 and opened another café in Shanghai. And the café in Shanghai is just as popular as the one in Beijing and also visited by many different customers. In the popular TV-show that began in the early 90’s the viewers follow the six friends： Joey， Rachel， Ross， Phoebe， Chandler and Monica and their daily ups and downs. A lot of the series takes place in the characters regular meeting place“Central Perk”， more specifically in a big orange sofa where they have coffee， discuss their problems and talk about life in general. The owner Du Xin has copied almost every detail from the café in the TVshow and of course there is a big orange sofa as well. This orange sofa in Shanghai has gathered a lot of Chinese friends as well as foreign friends from all over the world. The café is about friendship According to 23-year-old Peggy Sheng， who has been working as a waitress in Central Perk Café for three months， the café is not just an ordinary café like the rest of the coffee houses or cafés you find in Shanghai： “We need to make coffee to the customers and clean the tables but because it is a theme café， we also have to talk to the customers about the