Yes, quite possibly, but I couldn’t stand any of the characters on Seinfeld. Maybe that was the point, but if so, I don’t get why they thought that was good or necessary. Why would I spend my time watching people I don’t like act stupid? On Friends, the characters often acted stupid, and sometimes I felt like I wanted to kick them, but they seemed more in the range of normal instead of hateful.
Other than being an ensemble sitcom on NBC Thursdays, I don’t really see anything from Friends copying Seinfeld. The characters are widely different, about 10 years younger, and there’s a lot more focus on relationships.
I’d say that, of the Friends cast, Jennifer Aniston and Lisa Kudrow largely escaped that fate. Kudrow (my favorite actor of the six of them) has not only worked consistently, in film and TV, since Friends ended, but she’s received critical acclaim for many of her acting roles, and she created – as well as starred in – two well-received and successful TV series (Web Therapy and The Comeback).
There’s no doubt that she will forever be, first and foremost, Phoebe Buffay in people’s minds, but she’s used the fame that that role gave her to build a strong post-Friends career.
I only ever saw it in passing, but I always wondered how they managed to snag that couch in the middle of a busy coffee shop.
And yet they still find it necessary to do commercials for water, popcorn, and phone games.
By the same TV logic that let a number of young people who were job-hopping or working minimum-wage jobs have extremely large Manhattan apartments. 
Schwimmer has pretty much stopped doing TV and is doing stage work. Anniston and Kudrow, as noted, have had high-profile roles – Anniston has won two Lead Actress Emmy awards and two nominations for Critics Choice awards, while Kurdrow has racked up plenty of great reviews, particularly for her work in The Opposite of Sex. Matthew Perry had a recurring role in West Wing before his demons caught up with him. Matt LeBlanc took five years off to care for a child with severe health problems, then came back and got good reviews for his work in Episodes.Even Courtney Cox has had a steady, if not particularly critically acclaimed career after Friends.
Probably Gunther made sure others left it unoccupied.
They reserved it. There’s a sign on the table.
There was also a joke in a episode where they show up, the couch is taken, so they all crowd around a little table.
and how many commercials now?
I suspect that New Yorkers would just ignore that reserved sign, if that group wasn’t there and there’s no other option. Or even if there are other options.
Apparently, the owner leaves this prime seating vacant all day in the hopes the Friends will come in and drink a boatload of coffee.
As I said, I suspect Gunther might scare off others from sitting there, but I doubt the owner cares.
He will be forever excluded from the inner Friends circle no matter what he does for them.
The Independent: Lisa Kudrow bluntly wades into intense Friends fan debate: ‘He was horrible!’ (re: “We were on a break!”)
He also hosted four series of British car show Top Gear after Clarkson et al left. Turns out Matt is a major gearhead.
I thought he was very good on Top Gear.
I’ve never seen him as host, but he was a great guest. And a fast one, too - he broke the track record on his first appearance.
I suppose initially Friends was also a bit of a “show about nothing” where each episode seemed more or less a self-contained vignette about the day in the lives of a bunch of 20-somethings living in 1990s Manhattan.
Later both shows tended to develop ongoing episode or even season-spanning character arcs or major life events.