Warning: Contains spoilers for How I Met Your Father season 1.
In How I Met Your Father, the group never went to MacLaren’s bar, a set that was central to the original series, How I Met Your Mother, but it was never explained why. How I Met Your Father has made plenty of nods to the series it is a spin-off from, whether by subtly addressing some of How I Met Your Mother’s controversies or through more direct references and easter eggs. However, How I Met Your Father has also had to walk a delicate line to ensure it can be seen as a successful show on its own merit, and not simply a rehash of the older series.
In How I Met Your Mother, the gang primarily inhabit two key sets for the majority of the show’s 9 season run. The first is the apartment that Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor), Marshall Erickson (Jason Segal), and later Lily Aldrin (Alyson Hannigan) share. The second is the bar located directly downstairs from the apartment building, MacLaren’s, run by Carl MacLaren (Joe Nieves) with the help of Wendy the Waitress (Charlene Amoia). During How I Met Your Father’s first 9 episodes, the new group of characters never set food in MacLaren’s or pay any reference to the iconic bar’s existence.
How I Met Your Father’s ignoring of MacLaren’s bar has been somewhat of an elephant in the room throughout the season 1 run, given that How I Met Your Mother’s other key set makes an appearance. As Jesse (Christopher Lowell) and Sid (Suraj Sharma) now live in Ted and Marshall’s old apartment, it is clear that Jesse and Sid live directly above the old MacLaren’s, and unless it has closed down it is weird that the group never enter or discuss it. However, in the How I Met Your Father season 1 finale, Sophie (Hilary Duff) leaves Sid and Jesse’s apartment in search of a drink and enters MacLaren’s and lampshades the fact that they never go in, have seen MacLaren’s from the outside and even has Sophie comment that it is weird. The simple acknowledgment of the fact helps to explain that it is a local bar that they have never gone to for no good reason.
While there is some attempt earlier on from How I Met Your Father to explain why the group never goes to MacLaren’s the show undermines itself. From How I Met Your Father season 1, episode 1, it is shown that Sid owns his own bar, and the group hangs out there primarily. While none of the other characters visiting MacLaren’s when it is more convenient might be seen as loyalty, How I Met Your Father episode 8, “The Perfect Shot,” breaks the loyalty idea. Jesse might hang out in Sid’s bar, but he is bringing his own beer and sharing with the others, suggesting that it is not actually about supporting their friend’s struggling business.
Ultimately, How I Met Your Father saving a visit to MacLaren’s until the final episode was the right choice. Doing so enabled the show to establish itself as more of its own entity, only borrowing one set from How I Met Your Mother, before making a more definite and concrete connection in the How I Met Your Father season 1 finale. This fits in with the way that How I Met Your Father saved the cameos from the original How I Met Your Mother until the final two-part finale. In episode 9, The Captain (Kyle MacLachlan) and Becky (Laura Bell Bundy) appear before reprising those roles in How I Met Your Father episode 10 along with cameos from Carl, Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders), and of course MacLaren’s itself.
