Did you ever wonder why the couch at the Central Perk coffee shop from Friends almost always seemed to be available to the main characters? After all, this is a business located in New York City we’re talking about here. Anyone who’s lived in a busy city will tell you it’s hard enough to get a small table at a restaurant, but securing an entire couch day after day? Either this is an oversight on the part of the showrunners, or we’ve got to be missing something.

Well, as Tanya Ghahremani of Bustle pointed out some years ago, the idea of the characters just expecting their spot to be free time and time again is unrealistic. However, while binge-watching the show in 2015, Ghahremani noticed something hiding in plain sight that actually explains a lot. You see, it turns out that in many episodes, a “reserved” sign is visible on the coffee table sitting in front of the couch. This makes perfect sense considering that most of the characters lived right upstairs and Rachel worked there for a while.

The sign pops up in early episodes and can be spotted throughout the show’s 10-season run. Sometimes it’s placed on the side table to the left of the couch; sometimes it’s wedged between the napkin dispenser and the flower vase, but for the most part, the section is usually reserved whenever members of the group are there. This is obviously something that came up behind the scenes, otherwise the prop wouldn’t exist in the first place. Apparently, there were times where someone forgot to make a reservation, though, because they decided to throw in a gag in Season 3’s “The One With the Princess Leia Fantasy” where the gang arrives at the coffee shop only to find out that another group has taken their spot:

The ‘Friends’ Gang Always Had the Central Perk Couch for a Reason You Probably Missed

There was also the Season 2 episode “The One With the Bullies,” in which a couple of guys try to scare Ross and Chandler into giving up the couch for good. Ross and Chandler decide to go back anyway, but drink their coffees really fast so they can hit the road before the bullies arrive. Even in that quick scene, though, you can catch the reserved sign on the table. Check out the clip for yourself below (the sign’s right in front of the flowers).