I run a coworking space in a small town. We have a small university-type institution within walking distance, and years ago, I thought students might want to subscribe to a 'night-owl' type space. Late night study hall sort of thing (the campus library closes at 9, and most other places are closed by then too). Someone in the office indicated many students were studying at a sheetz gas station (24 hr) at 1am, because there was 'no place else to go'. I'd connected with some, and said "hey, I've got an overnight study hall for $29/month - electronic door code, free coffee/tea/snacks - are you interested?"
You'd have thought I'd have insulted their family. I had multiple people become indignant with "I'm a poor college student! I can't afford that! No way! Do you know how expensive school is?!?!". They're paying at least $3/night on coffee minimum anywhere they go, and often more.
EDIT: quick followup to a bunch of answers. I'm not sure I said it was completely irrational, but... weird. This was just in the last several years - people are paying $400+/credit hour, and using credit/debit cards for everything. Yes, I remember only having a few $ in my pocket, back when the world lived on cash, and conserving every dollar was of the utmost importance. Charging people $1/night... inevitably on a card... nets you about .70c. My point was to try to at least break even, and provide a service to some folks. Making $4/night from 5-6 people, then spending $5 in coffee/tea/snacks... I'm losing money. I guess if I made it up in volume and sold it to a VC, I'd have been rolling in it. As it was, I didn't. It was an idea I floated by people, and it was not received well.
It's not as irrational a decision as you make it sound. They may spend $3 per day instead of $30 for the month, but they preserve their optionality. College is typically a turbulent time, and paying $30 up front for a service that you end up not needing because your schedule changes unexpectedly would suck.
I think the offer should've been to have a $1/night fee, with free instant coffee/water/tea.
but of course, the coffee they buy at the station is worth the $3 (apparently), and the location was free in their minds. Therefore, the comparison is to have to pay another $3 for coffee else where and then bring it into this space they rent (and pay another $1). That's obviously sounds like a bad deal.
Also I didn’t need to study every night in a month. There’s a handful of stretches where I need to grind but it’s was sporadic. Certainly not something I want to manage a monthly payment for.
Also, in a college students mind, your value comp is a Netflix subscription.
$1 a night (as suggested by sibling) or even $3 a night would have been an instant sell.
College students are notoriously thrifty. At any given time they might have less than a hundred dollars in their bank account, so 29 dollars is a third of their net worth. By spending 29 dollars up front they lose a lot of their liquidity.
Yes, they study at a Sheetz and buy a $3 coffee each time, but I doubt they study every night, in fact I would suspect that those who do that only do it a few times a month before a big test or something.
You probably would have been better off charging $1.00 for all you can drink coffee. Even tho that turns into the same number when you do the math it preserves optionality, but it also just isn’t nominally as big a number for the student. Price sensitivity often has an awful lot to do with the upfront sticker.
You'd probably have better luck advertising online or posting on a bulletin board to the same audience. If someone came up to me offering this and that for $x/mo, I wouldn't really consider it, I'd think it was another forever subscription service.
I'd be interested in seeing if giving them one or a few days free shifted their response much.
I've always liked working in a third space more than home, but there are also a lot of factors that go in to the places I pick and those evolve over time.
In my current life stage I generally spend at least $10/d in one, though it used to be a lot less when I was in college. In any case, I'd still balk at allocating $300 or even $100 for a space I hadn't hung out in for long enough to figure out how I feel about all of the various factors that matter.
This might be a difference between people who have come to think of their time/productivity as money or at least a resource to cultivate.
Many years ago it was very hard for me to justify a new laptop for purely personal use. One day I was preparing for a non-leisure trip that I'd otherwise have to miss out on paid work for. Even though the trip was short, it was easy to justify the purchase when the shift in opportunity cost covered the laptop.
A few other thoughts, in case you haven't tried them:
- Assuming these are mostly, say, students under the age of 25 or so--make it easy for parents to gift these memberships (whether that's a subscription or by paying for a gift card) and focus on marketing to them instead.
- See if an N-visit pass/bundle/card works. Might create a little more commitment than pure drop-in, but also avoid aversion to paying for something you might not end up using.
- On top of pure drop-in or a pass/bundle approach, leave some clear benefits to the unlimited pass (placement/scheduling preference, bring-a-friend, locker to store stuff in, etc.)
- If they won't be too disruptive, market something like a bring-a-friend subscription to more stable school-adjacent users like tutors, and then offer the students and tutors both a small referral discount if the students pick up their own pass.
Without going into the economics of it all, I know that most college students, myself included, didn't really need a dedicated place to study very often, if it all.
For those rare times where it could have been needed, we tended to use the University library...or literally any space on campus. Or studied at home for those of us that commuted.
Driving/Walking to a dedicated place would have been seen as wasted time better used elsewhere (studying/partying)
What if you approached the school to pay for it? B2B > B2C, provide access using school keycards or similar. Like a coworking stipend at a remote for profit.
Probably students hang out at the Sheetz because students hang out at the sheetz.
The sheetz is a scene. The library is a scene. That's what matters. If I spend $29 to use your place, it's not a scene unless a bunch of other people pay $29.
Anyway, the premise of your sales pitch was your-scene-sucks. I'm not surprised it didn't go over well. You weren't eating your own dogfood.
One thing I realized after living in Sweden for eight months is the lack of third places, or at least third places similar to what I found in Italy. In order to go to a place, you need to pay, book an appointment, and be "known." Living in Turin, on the other hand, was a story of magical encounters in the street, bars, clubs, etc. These third places (Murazti, for example) gave me people who have now become very good friends of mine that I can trust.
For me, as an immigrant in both countries, it's essential to have those places, and the lack of them made me depressed, sad, and even suicidal (during the Swedish winter).
Not having someone to talk to is sad and unhealthy. Let's not make this an endangered species; it is a public health issue.
But it sounds like in Italy you entered the coffee shop to drink coffee and socialize - which fulfills the mission of a coffee shop.
However, I noticed that in post-pandemic Poland and the USA where i spend a lot of time, coffee shops are starting to become more like coworking spaces where the "laptop class" is demanding not only perpetual space but worst of all, silence, since they are busy working and concentrating. It is simply not what it used to be.
I disagree with the silence bit. I am a frequent remote worker at coffee shops across the USA and people working have noise canceling headphones usually, I have never seen anyone demand silence in a coffee shop. Libraries are a different story.
We were asked by the staff to re-seat at different table from the 'laptop class' in Montreal cafe because we were speaking in normal voice. Sample of one, but still.
This is what a community is. This can usually be maintained by local businessowners. Not so much by large megacorps who have no stake in the local community.
But, we are making local businessowners an endangered species. How? Ever-increasing regulation, so the only ones left with a budget willing navigate the federal, state, and local regulations - you guessed it, large megacorps.
Economies of scale have always pushed businesses towards consolidation - that's literally what I was taught in Econ 101. There were large megacorps in the Gilded Era which long pre-dated the modern regulatory environment. It ultimately took government intervention (trust-busting) to change things.
Since OP mentioned Italy it's worth mentioning places like Rome have plenty of public spaces that easily accessible which are great places to hang out and meet people. Here in the US we have parks by my house but they're really just giant fields w/ a baseball diamond. Maybe a place scape. What good is that for anyone?
>magical encounters in the street, bars, clubs, etc.
Sounds good, doesn't work. The chance that the stranger has something in common with me, and he's in a mood to talk to me, is extremely low.
I kept going out and trying to socialize in such places, but it turned out to be a massive waste of time without even a single tiny success, and as my life keeps getting busier, the mental cost of being around loud strangers makes less and less sense.
One off chance encounters like that on a bar or street put a lot of pressure on the specific encounter and don't allow a more gradual "get to know you" phase.
Do you have a social activity that you've neglected with the lack of available friends? Or one that you're interested in but never had the chance to get involved with? This is perhaps mundane advice, but check if there's a group that does that activity and try to become a regular. They're always very welcoming to newcomers and you'll find yourself well established in the group after a few returns.
This is a tough topic to bring up on HN because no matter how you write it somebody find something to nitpick you about. I certainly am not shitting on anyone that is down on their life I am active in my community, both monetarily and physically helping those in need.
The reason for this renovations is to keep homeless individuals from camping inside the stores. The author goes off on a lot of tangents on topics he has strong/biased opinions (unions, corporate greed, etc) on but this was not highlighted as the primary cause.
Retail business is hard. You _do_ want to be charitable, but you also have to make profits to survive. Unfortunately even a single unsanitary individual present can drive away paying customers.
Not here to offer solutions, but I think it’s important to be point out the root cause.
> The reason for this renovations is to keep homeless individuals from camping inside the stores
It's also to prevent free riding businesses from setting up shop. It's also to reflect market changes where fewer people were looking to them as third places in the first place.
> Retail business is hard. You _do_ want to be charitable
Mostly, no, retail businesses don't, they want to make money. To the extent appearing charitable helps with that, they may want to appear charitable, but that's instrumental, not an objective in itself.
> to keep homeless individuals from camping inside the store
Why wasn't that a problem for the previous 20 years of Starbucks existence?
Managers of NYC restaurants (including Starbucks) are usually quite familiar with specific local individuals that may not be welcome in their establishment, and have a variety of techniques for managing occupancy.
The social and political environment for the unhoused, as well as the substance abuse environment, has shifted during those 20 years. Many homeless people today are exactly where they want to be. They don't want to come up with rent every month, please a boss every day. They want to do street drugs without a care in the world. Sometimes it's an easier way to avoid confronting mental issues.
20 years ago if you asked an unhoused person to leave a Starbucks, the fear of police, the general shame, etc. soft social pressure might have worked. Today's street residents might see the antagonism as entertainment, their position in the world as entitled, and sleeping in the police lockup as a clever free hotel hack. It's the same sense of entitlement that has them break someone's car window for something they can sell for $10 or walk out of a store with an arm full of merchandise.
In a way, the breach of social contract has become an entertainment aspect, if not a Robinhood-esque anti-society self-justification. The consequences of "being a constructive member of society" are too high for many, and the consequences of street life are ones you can mentally harden yourself against.
The way you view homeless people is completely dehumanizing and embarrassingly inaccurate. I would encourage you to get off your high horse and acquire an ounce of perspective.
Speculation here, but there seems to have been an overall increase in homelessness and less willingness by some communities to police the problem.
Anecdotally, when I moved about 10 years ago, it was uncommon to see homeless downtown. Then there was a transition period where they were allowed downtown in the evening but the police would clear them out in the early morning. Now, you can find them there at all times of the day.
Look up “Ferguson effect”. Regardless of police budgets, policing in the USA has taken a step back in the last decade and reduced enforcement.
The result can be seen everywhere - more car crashes and deaths, speeding, homicides, car theft, and also in smaller ways like subway turnstile jumping and loitering.
I’m not sure of the meta factors have driven it recently, but at least in some large US metro areas, it became enough of a problem that some coffee chains have recently switched from having in-store seating and restrooms to pick-up only without those amenities.
You imply it wasn't a problem, it was. It always has been. The tools to deal with them have been reduced, because people unrelated to the problem are applying various types of pressure to allow homeless people to exist where they want, as long as those homeless people don't exist where the unrelated complainers are!
Yet Starbucks managed to have chairs, tables and third-place customers for the last 20 years.
The Harvard Business School case study will be interesting: "How a $35 billion dollar company was defeated by random homeless people and their supporters.
> Why wasn't that a problem for the previous 20 years of Starbucks existence?
Hostile architecture in public spaces outside of private businesses has increased, si private businesses are forced to become more hostile to maintain the same degree of success in the “we don’t want you here” wars.
The article refers to Starbucks in Toronto, where I am. How they handled panhandlers in the past was via a handshake agreement where they could come in and get a cup of water or small coffee free of charge and rest on one of the seats in the corner of the store.
At a busy intersection location where I would go to write daily, I'd see people following those rules and not bothering anyone. The store would be full of regular customers too.
After Covid, everything changed, and not just the decor. Wait times for orders increased massively, to the point where I'm wondering if staff are instructed to service the drive-thru people and Doordashers first. The customer experience now is woeful, and I haven't been back in months.
I don’t deny that, I’m just clarifying the OP that relates the issue we’re seeing “now” to the invention of fentanyl. It’s more complicated than the presence of the drug, like you said it relates to the changes in usage, irrespective of when the drug was invented.
No idea, I could only speculate. Shifts in: culture, consumer behavior, homeless population volume or their demeanor, tightening retail profit margins, increasing costs of labor and operating costs would all be likely be contributing factors.
Who said it wasn’t? The article is about one Starbucks in Toronto. We don’t know how many Starbucks stores closed, moved, changed their hours, or rearranged their furniture, or had managers willing to tell homeless to move on.
From a low it reached in about the middle of the 20 year period, back to a level it was close to the beginning of that period. (In absolute numbers, not in rate.)
In some countries and eras of human civilization, urban residents might be entertained by the concept of a company with $30 billion in annual revenue being unable to influence any local influencers of order and civilized behavior, to protect and grow their revenue stream.
Businesses aren't charitable. They keep customers to donate money and then donate the money in the businesses name and get a tax write off. I agree it isn't the responsibility of business owners to take care of the homeless, it's the government. We should providing housing to these people. Luckily for us big businesses has advocated for a world that is good for them and bad for us. If free housing was available people wouldn't be so exploitable and would be able to hold out for higher paying jobs.
> They keep customers to donate money and then donate the money in the businesses name and get a tax write off
False if you Google search the claim. https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-000329849244 “ Stores can’t write off a customer’s point-of-sale donations, because they don’t count as company income, according to tax policy experts. Customers can write off their own donations if they choose.”
But the rise of remote work and just an enormous class of workers looking for a free “office” has exploded. I’m sure they have been overrun with squatters buying 1 coffee and sitting for 7 hours — I bet their electricity and bathroom use alone makes them unprofitable. And they displace other transient customers who may have stayed and ordered more like when meeting a friend.
The model is broken at this tragedy of the commons scale.
They do not want to be in business of policing tables usage, and always run the risk of having to displace someone and having it escalate to some kind of video captured confrontation or shaming.
The author of this article as well as many comments here are talking about this as a "third place" issue, but "third place" is 3rd because there's 2 others before it: home and workplace. From what I can tell, the author is really looking for a workplace.
I think the problem is that some WFH-types[1] have co-opted all the third places and have turned them into cheap workplaces, and coffee shops can't afford to be a coworking space (1 coffee for 7 hours as you say, which I'm sure more people do than some people here believe).
[1] I say this as a 100% remote person myself. But I've never felt right going to a coffee shop or restaurant and sitting there for more than an hour or so.
I am writing this from a coffee shop where myself and others have gone well over 4 hours working. The business owners don’t care so long as you make purchases and don’t sit at a 10 person table for just yourself.
I see people get a morning coffee, get lunch and a drink, and then maybe something on their way out. It’s not a problem.
I am right there with you; working from home for last 6 years and 10 of 12. If I work from an another location it is an hour or so. I also live in a neighborhood that is mostly professionals that are back in office, so it seems there is less WFH people in some places around me, especially some newly opened spots.
I was at a cute little cafe the other day that serves little desserts and baked goods and someone sat down, opened their laptop, pulled out the mouse and headset and proceeded to join a conference call. They ordered a croissant. Dude eat your croissant, enjoy the atmosphere and leave. Go do that shit at home. Honestly even my public library has been overrun with people squatting all day for work.
Just to play devil's advocate: The electricity in the restaurant would be on anyway, and bathrooms would be used anyway, regardless of whether the remote worker was there. What's the actual cost to a restaurant if I decide to sit in a corner all day on a laptop? As long as I was not disturbing anyone by having loud conference or phone calls, and as long as the restaurant is not full and I'm not taking up a spot someone else is waiting for. Surely the small trickle of electricity needed to charge a MacBook Air is not a material expense.
I mean charging the laptop does increase electricity consumption. As well as flushing toilets, using soap and towels, and wear on plumbing — and maybe frequent cleaning, depending on the restroom habits compared to transit visitors
Not to mention they seem to have also morphed into child daycare centers, at least the ones I frequent. Moms bringing their toddlers to run around and scream at the top of their lungs makes getting almost any meaningful work done impossible.
The lack of fellowship between citizens is both a result and a cause of the decline of "third places", and is part of a large decline in civic life among Americans.
People don't know or like the other citizens in their towns and cities; the cultural and class-education divides are enormous. They also lack the temerity to use law enforcement to clean up (trash-, dirt-, and behavior-wise) public spaces to reserve them for those seeking socializing without disruption, or to use the legal system to push back on car-centric design, or to use their money on creative aesthetics to make it nicer to be in public spaces.
I like the point made way down at the bottom, especially about libraries:
For readers looking to find Third Places the good news is that for now they do still exist throughout the city. However, without regular patrons that could always change. Seek out the cafes, reading rooms, and esoteric bookstores of Kensington Market. For world renowned collections of books and high speed free public Wi-Fi, one hundred Toronto Public Libraries are scattered throughout the city. For close quarters laughs many small bars host casual open-mic nights for everything from comedy to music to poetry.
Also, seems wrong to not even mention Tim's. Are Tim Hortons in Toronto not like Tim Hortons outside of Toronto? Maybe they're too small to qualify as a third place?
I varies a lot by location. But many of the downtown Toronto locations are small with little seating. The suburbs and highway side locations are often larger and more comfortable.
Not to mention that Tim's has a pretty bad reputation these days. The food and drink quality has dropped significantly and it isn't "cool". So at least for younger people it is likely not used as a third place. (Maybe this is a business opportunity for Tim's!)
Re: libraries, one sad thing that's happening in some US states is that smaller libraries are becoming "adult only" because of new state laws regarding how they organize their collections [1]. In cities like New York, budget issues are causing public libraries to have to cut hours and only be open 5-6 days a week or cut programming for children [2]. While these issues don't seem to be widespread (yet), I think there's good reason to be concerned that under-18 friendly third spaces aren't as common as they used to be.
Tim's used to be the original third place up north. In smaller communities or local (blue collar) enclaves, it still is. It's the blue collar connotation that's lead to their declining use in urban centers.
I'm not sure its 100% "blue collar connections." That may be part of it, but the quality of food/drinks at starbucks has gone down dramatically in the past 5-10 years.
I worked full time there for awhile and happily ate hundreds of meals there. Now I won'tbeven touch my favourite donuts (#sourcreamglazedgang)
I dont know if its a corporate level thing or a franchise level thing, but man, Tim's sucks now
[edit: i meant to say the quality of tim's food has gone down, not starbucks]
I think it’s a mixture of corporate decisions and economic forces. For one thing, commercial real estate has skyrocketed even moreso than residential. If you’re a franchisee and your lease has shot through the roof but you can’t raise food prices then you’re going to demand corporate switch to cheaper ingredients and processes.
I just had a sandwich at Tim's the other day. It was freshly made with fresh ingredients. I was pleasantly surprised. In the middle, Tim's had food quality issues, but if the last experience is any indication, they have recovered nicely from it.
I heard from a Canadian friend of mine (very reliable source) that Tim's corporate changed to the same supplier of coffee beans that Starbucks uses. It's possible their other meal options were changed similarly.
The implication that I don't go to Tim's because I don't want to be in proximity to or associated with blue collar workers is extremely offensive to me as a Canadian.
Hanging out at Tim's is like hanging out at Subway or Dairy Queen. Other than the quality comparison, or the just plain sad vibes comparison, Tim's is in the "quick service" restaurant business since private equity bought them out and they are not designed to have people stick around.
TH has been my 3rd place since forever. You can actually get a medium coffee for under $2. The same at Starbucks would be 3x the price. Canadians can be very quick to put it down though.
Not to diminish the guys work, it's a good read, I just find it amusing he's from Toronto, a place that contains arguably the largest "third place" in the whole world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_(Toronto)
I was actually walking through it on Monday and noticed they've renovated all the stuff down by Bay and Front, there are LOADS of working areas and eating areas (with and without vendors, HUGE areas of eating area without vendors in fact) - I'm always super impressed by the path, it's a cool thing as someone not native to Toronto.
I'm a Toronto native and the PATH is very cool, but I don't know how great of a third place it is.
It does have public seating and tables, but they are spread out and often not very large. Also almost all of the shops are closed down on weekends (it is basically a ghost town) including the washrooms. Together this makes it seem much more like a large cafeteria and shops for people going to or from work. But I don't know if that qualifies it as the best third place.
That being said Toronto is decent at third places, we have decent park density and a good handful of public spaces like city hall and a good distribution of quality public libraries. So maybe I am just coming from a place of privilege.
They just completed a bunch of renovation in the last few months, if you've not been in the blocks around Bay and King recently, go check it out, it looks great! If they do that to the whole path, it will really open it up a lot.
I was there. (I am admittedly not a regular but did recently go on a "PATH walk".) I don't think that renovation is the main problem. The PATH is very nice and comfortable. I see the main issue is it being closed weekends (I don't think most shops are not allowed to open, probably not the food ones at least as the bathrooms are locked.) I understand that this would be a tough problem to bootstrap. Because obviously no one is there because no shops are open, but no shops are open because no one is there. But it does seem surprising to me that Starbucks or some other coffee shop next to a huge array of fairly comfortable tables couldn't make a profit on weekends, even if it took a while for the word of this nice location to get out.
It's a good idea, even if they zoned/mandate some of it as such (coffee shop in work area open on weekends), technically the city is in charge of the path. I know a few councilors through work, guess it's worth mentioning.
I don't want to diminish how interesting the path is, but in my experience, it's still too far out of the way and too purpose-driven to have the organic spontaneity of a good third space.
Indeed, on the first point, I live in a condo connected to the path, so obviously extremely useful for me. Not sure if you've been inside recently, but as I mentioned the renovations they've done in the core core core (2-3 blocks of CIBC tower) has really opened it up, before it was just a tunnel to me, it's slowly turning into a "place" - but I do overall agree today it's not quite there for most of the core (and will never be great for those outside it, it's way too hard to navigate if you don't use it daily)
Hmm I see the American definition of this is a bit different. I've always considered the term as places you can meet with people but don't have to pay to exist in. Parks, playgrounds, libraries, benches around a river, town squares, university campuses, seating around a statue, that kind of thing.
From my EU perspective there's really no shortage of absurdly large shopping malls, bars, restaurants, pubs, stores and the like. They've just become so expensive to hang out in that it feels like you're being robbed at gunpoint which takes nearly all enjoyment out of it.
> Most egregiously, all of the window seating is gone, and in its space stand faux chic leather leaning bars that most closely resemble what a horse would be tied to outside a saloon.
Some NYC Starbucks previously had tables, now have ... nothing at the window. Saw a guy with laptop in one hand and coffee in the other, standing there for at least 15 minutes, with occasional gymnastics to interact with laptop.
The tort environment in the US is gumming up the gears big time, and I believe it to be one of the undercurrents of change. Every business decision begins with the question “how do we limit our liability exposure?”.
One way is to separate the land asset from the business, so it is not at risk in lawsuits. This diminishes the incentive to create businesses, since the rent seeking portion of the business is even more profitable, and the productive portion of the business is less profitable.
Another is to have cameras everywhere. And another is to require higher prices and/or credit cards, to service as credit checks to filter customers.
And obviously, the last but not least, is to simply eliminate third places and eliminate potential interaction between employees and the broader public.
That example of liability only seems very tangentially related to third place activity. The lawsuit was over a discriminatory employee firing that was seemingly undertaken for reasons of public relations and community reputation, to mitigate these aspects of the impact to Starbucks of the original event.
The triggering event could just as easily have been any number of other scenarios unrelated to third place usage patterns - and even unrelated to customer behavior. It was just an employment discrimination matter, period.
What’s more, this original triggering event was arresting a Black person who didn’t order anything, whereas most people who go to commercial third places (including most such Black people) do order at least one thing, even when they occupy their seat for far too long for the amount of money they spend.
> It was just an employment discrimination matter, period.
It is tangentially related, but I believe the results were all the same. And perhaps the root cause was actually quelling the rage machine enabled by social media and the internet, but either way, the business decision remains:
How do we reduce the possibility this happens again? Regardless of how correct the Starbucks’ employees actions were in asking a non paying person to leave, and regardless of the fact that it is police who arrest people, not Starbucks employees, the event may have contributed to Starbucks’ executives concluding that the cost of providing the third place is not worth the benefit.
Looking at this another way, coffee and sugary drinks are a fungible commodity. If Starbucks is removing third places, why is there no competitor stepping in with a third place and taking their business?
> How do we reduce the possibility this happens again? Regardless of how correct the Starbucks’ employees actions were in asking a non paying person to leave, and regardless of the fact that it is police who arrest people, not Starbucks employees, the event may have contributed to Starbucks’ executives concluding that the cost of providing the third place is not worth the benefit.
That would be bad reasoning on Starbucks’s part. The problem that led to the liability was treating managers differently based on race, unrelated to the original trigger. Starbucks reasons better than that, and indeed as I note later in this comment, they have made no overall decision to stop being a third place.
> Looking at this another way, coffee and sugary drinks are a fungible commodity. If Starbucks is removing third places, why is there no competitor stepping in with a third place and taking their business?
These do exist. I’ve used them. And Starbucks still accommodates the third place usage pattern in many places inside and outside the US, including ones where lawsuits are a risk. They make a site-specific decision on what’s worth the tradeoff for them, not a nationwide or global decision.
I wonder if OpenStreetMap has historical information easily available and easily queryable. It'd be interesting to see the evolution of the number of benches in cities and parks. My feeling is that they have been disappearing in my area, and it feels harder to find good spots to sit and read a book.
It’s so sad to see how major chains are doing a quick reno and removing most of the seating. Just like the author, I also live in a dense Canadian neighbourhood, and there’s a Starbucks a block away from my place which pulled the same thing last year.
Another sad reality is, even though it’s a corporate initiative, it’s only happening in specific countries. Whoever lives in Japan or South Korea, can attest to the fact how every global chain operates on a different level over there. Obviously “you shouldn’t drink on the street” cultural norm affects the business decisions, but still, it’s just sad to see how there are less and less people just hang out in public.
> The Starbucks this piece occupies is no longer a community hub – its capacity to function as one has been filtered out by profit-seeking decisions
To be fair, I think the reason that it formerly sought to be a community hub was also motivated by profit-seeking decisions. Maybe when there were a handful of locations the comfy seating was motivated by something other than profit. I imagine by the time they opened store number 20,000 that the design of the store, including the comfy seating, was very careful designed to seek profit.
One Starbucks nearer to where I used to live transitioned to this mobile pickup model removing all the indoor seating. I have been there a couple of times since the remodel and it is just weird to walk into knowing it used to be a meeting place for people to talk and spend some time.
Now, if I go out to work, maybe once a week, I try to limit my time there to an hour or two tops. I also try to go to places that are likely to be more empty at the moment and not preventing any person from finding a seat if they walk in.
There is a kind of a concept I've been to recently: A work-friendly cafe. It was not a co-working space. It was not a cafe. It was something in between.
Pros:
- You don't need to worry about battery or your laptop being stolen. Plenty of charging ports and space is open and owner is looking after.
- It's relatively quiet as most people were working themselves. Most seemed to be students.
- You pay by day/half-day. You have the space for the fulltime the place is open plus free black coffee and water. You can order extra.
If the shops are full of people working, are they not a second place? Of course it sucks if removing the free second place also removes the third place, but it really seems to stem from a cultural problem of people using coffee shops as coworking spaces?
Of course, the market could correct with starbucks's business going to other coffee shops that could offer these services, though they probably need to reign in the abuse a bit to make it profitable.
The role of rising cost of living (or more generally, interest rates and the "cost of money") are factors I find underdiscussed in this article.
Owners must run an increasingly sleeker operation -- meanwhile, the consumer has to work more jobs or more hours to make ends meet, and doesn't have the time to lounge around and chat.
Starbucks probably shouldn't have been anybody's only third place to begin with. Their mandate is not to be a community resource, as it turns out. It's a public company, it was always going to change to maximize other variables than your mental health. All that stuff about being a third place drops away really quickly when put to the test. This is not advanced math, it's pretty common sense. Instead, try to pick a spot that's owned by someone in the community, who actually cares about the community they're a part of.
"Oh, but there aren't many other options, Starbucks put them all out of business". Well, at least it's cheap and convenient, I guess. Revealed preferences. Better hope that's enough!
Totally agree. And I honestly don't think Starbucks removing seating has much if any impact on reducing "third spaces" since almost everyone buying Starbucks was getting it to go anyway. This article reads more like someone being annoyed about Starbucks changing than any real evidence that third spaces are going away.
If anything, if more people are now using coffeeshops as remote offices we are likely to see new shops catered to this opening up.
Something that I haven’t seen mention is the combination of Covid-19 shifting consumer behavior and the rise of DoorDash and others. A number of restaurants in my town never went back to offering seating and instead have a dedicated pickup spot for DoorDash.
I went to do carry out from a local restaurant that had a small bar section as well as a restaurant section and thought I might have a drink while I waited. I wasn’t able to because the whole bar section was strictly for carry out now.
I noticed this too with my local Starbucks stores.
It seems boils down to revenue. If too many people sit down and use the area as a third place, then their revenue is capped if people stay too long.
Ideally it's should be a balance between customers and business. Go to the coffee shop, work for an hour then leave, to free up space.
I've also noticed they reduce seating to battle homeless folks from nesting in. It makes sense, I avoid stores if feel threatened from confrontational/aggressive people.
Isn't Starbucks business very heavily biased towards takeout orders? They have higher through-put on coffee sales if all the seats are full - how many people leave without ordering if the seats are in use?
Datpiff, I've noticed most Starbucks bias towards takeout orders these days. I do think that their indoor seating serves as the "top of the marketing" funnel, to get people to develop a brand preference. Without the 3rd place seating, it feels like green Dunkin Doughnuts.
Pvdoom, I completely agree. But it's VERY tough to ignore the real operating costs of keeping the space available. (I'm saying this as a former small business owner)
There are ways to fix these things, but it would be an unpopular opinion. Similar to the experience of exabrial's comment.
Coffee shops are still a decent place for this (eg in North Carolina cities), although I didn't realize people did this as Starbucks! There are four within a few blocks of me I bounce around between.
I would love to see more of these Third places. I hadn't heard of the concept, but it makes sense.
> Starbucks [...] were an industry leader that understood the impact that providing a *comfortable café environment* had on the experience of spending time within their stores.
Sorry, perhaps mine is too European a perspective, but are you kidding?
I'm an American and I don't get it either. There are tons of local coffee shops _everywhere_ in America, most with better coffee, happier baristas and unique atmosphere. Have so many Americans/Canadians never... like... been to a coffee shop that's not Starbucks?
I think it's more that a lot of Starbucks expansion in Europe happened when they already started switching gears to standard less compatible with providing a "Third Space".
Third places? Some of the companies I work with don't even want to be a "second place". They are giving up their office space to let people work from home.
There are more third spaces in North America today than have ever existed in the history of humanity, both commercial and non-commercial.
Every time someone claims otherwise I ask for evidence but have never received any. (except for the decrease in the number of bowling alleys, ok you got me there that's ONE)
In support of my assertion, I give evidence of the constantly increasing number of public parks, public libraries, and places of amusement like maker spaces, restaurants, and the like.
For example, in the US there are approximately 500 more libraries today than there were 20 years ago. There are, depending on how you count, 100 more public parks.
It is easier and more engaging to be a pessimist though.
It's like how decrepitly old ham radio operators constantly complain about how the hobby is dying despite there being more licensees and a wider variety of projects being undertaken as part of the hobby than ever.
There are things to do and people to meet everywhere, on every street of every city, EVEN IN THE SUBURBS YOU PRETEND TO DESPISE, and people are too busy bitching on the internet about how there aren't to realize it.
> For example, in the US there are approximately 500 more libraries today than there were 20 years ago. There are, depending on how you count, 100 more public parks.
I'm not sure how useful these absolute numbers are. At minimum I'd think you would need to normalize against population growth. According to Google, US population has grown by ~17% in the past 20 years.
But even separate from that, US-wide stats may not be informative about whether libraries and parks are over-crowded in any given state or metro area.
I wouldn't assume the root cause of these complaints is necessarily pessimism. Ironically, that assumption itself seems a bit pessimistic too!
I think the elephant in the room with this discussion is homelessness. Aside from public parks and libraries though, I think you can quantify that churches, social clubs and bars are in decline. While these places still exist, many of the options that people used to exercise for going out in public are no longer being considered as much.
I mean the reality clearly is that while most people claim to long for a “third place” what they really mean is “Place where they can scroll on their phone while alone and pay nothing.”
Once you realize that, it’s obvious why “commercial third places” are dying.
The author's library is being renovated, not disappearing. One large corporation (Starbucks) is enshittifying its experience by removing seating. I don't think the premise "third spaces are disappearing" is a valid conclusion at all.
I don't know if third spaces are indeed going away or not, but the argument here doesn't really address that.
By the way, if you don't like it don't buy Starbucks. Don't use Amazon. Don't use Twitter .(If you have the option). Not spending money/attention is more effective than complaining at changing companies' behavior.
I had a friend in college who would go to Starbucks every weekend, order a drip coffee and read a copy of the New York Times for hours. After, he would put the newspaper back without paying for it. So I always wonder about how these places find a balance with customers that are profitable and those that are, well, moochers.
Cafés and coffee shops near to where I live [1] are frequently rammed with people on laptops. I'm sure they're mostly diligent in buying drinks every hour or so, but I feel bad for the proprietors - its hard to see how they make much money.
I've seen people with multiple spare laptop batteries along with their bags etc., clearly intent on long-term occupation of their chosen table. Wasn't like this before covid.
The article mentions public libraries, and the branch library near me looks good as a place for maybe getting some work done - albeit with more background noise than I'd like.
[1] Relatively prosperous, professional, urban, northern England
> I'm sure they're mostly diligent in buying drinks every hour or so
I really doubt it. Even the people who are conscious of this and think of themselves as "one of the good ones" probably don't do this even if they intend to. Is someone who sits in a place for 5-6 hours really going to purchase 6 coffees or lattes at $6+ each? That's a lot of money, but also that's a lot of coffee to drink in a day, and tons of calories if they're the fancier kind of drinks.
I have no doubt that some people do, but I bet it's fewer than many would believe. And places like Starbucks are likely working based off hard data rather than just guesses or feelings.
I’ve never understood the desire to work from a coffee shop.
The furniture is usually hard wood and uncomfortable, the table height is not set for working so you’re hunched over your laptop, you don’t control the thermostat so it’s usually too hot or too cold, there’s liquid spills and sticky surfaces and crumbs everywhere, you usually have little space to yourself, there are other people talking and kids, etc., you have no privacy, you can’t get up and stretch your legs (or go to the bathroom) without leaving all your stuff behind or packing it up, etc.
Unless your home is a cardboard box under a bridge it’s probably a better place to work than a coffee shop. What’s the appeal?
If you work from home all the time, the occasional change of scenery can be nice.
Personally I work from cafes only once a week, and only for maybe 90 minutes at a time. I live in an area with a lot of cafes, so I switch it up each week and rotate through them. Some have better coffee, others have a better environment.
Lately the chains like Starbucks and Panera have become absolutely awful. Those are more like your description above. But the independent ones are usually better.
Not sure if it's a geographic/cultural thing but I definitely saw this in multiple east coast US cities pre-COVID, especially in neighborhoods close to universities. I remember this being an issue in some of the nicer areas of where I lived more than a decade ago - if you weren't there by 8am or 90% of the "good tables" (chairs not booths, near a window but not blinding sunlight, near an outlet, not near the door) were taken up by a single person on a laptop.
They can, but then that sucks for cafe customers that just want a latte, and don't want to "co-work." It's a problem where a few people are ruining something for the majority. I guess you could do some kind of "first 60 minutes included with purchase of drink" or something, but it all just seems so complicated.
Some coffee shops ban laptop use -- although I haven't seen that around where I live for years, I used to see it in another city some years ago. But perhaps they lose too much business if they do, damned either way. And of course there's still phones now.
I'm a happy capitalist, by that I mean I like my job and enjoy going to work etc etc. I'd love an office tel in my city. They're super common in Korea, and the modern ones include the office for the office workers, an office for you (your "WFH" office) and your house and coffee shops and stuff. I'm not sure I'd live in the exact same building my office was HQ'd in, but if I could live in the one next to it, that would be cool. (I'm sure I',m in the minority of those who likes this idea tho, ha)
Those places cost a lot of money to facilitate. They need to be cleaned and maintained. They require larger bathroom facilities due to the lengths of stays which also need to be cleaned and maintained. They need to pay people to do that. I fully understand that most wages aren’t enough to live on, but this is a direct effect of minimum wage laws. We can have living wages or we can have nice things at the expense of others essentially. But we really can’t have both and I am getting sick and tired of all the gd whining.
I'm sorry that you are growing tired of your fellow humans merely expressing their discontent. Maybe you can help with a solution, since you've heard about people's concerns? I know I try in my small corner of the world to make things better for those around me.
Other countries have higher minimum wage but more "third spaces", so I don't think this argument holds water. Also if the minimum wage increases, that puts pressure to increase all other wages.
The connection between wages and the number of third spaces is a little dubious. But, the complaint about whinging is valid - "Why can't a commercial organization create a third space for me, according to how I'd like it to be, or evn how it used to be" is the whinge I hear. Third places exist, but if it's not your favorite Starbucks, well, just move on.
I remember reading how in Tokyo you can find a lot of niche places even deep in city, with explanation given by small-time tailor (not some expensive main street kind of place) being given as that what he pays to rent the place is cheap enough.
While I'm not an expert in things Japan, from what I've seen the way they zone cities is far more mixed than the US/Canada model which leads to different property pricing behavior. In addition older buildings value can drop far more quickly there than here.
You'd have thought I'd have insulted their family. I had multiple people become indignant with "I'm a poor college student! I can't afford that! No way! Do you know how expensive school is?!?!". They're paying at least $3/night on coffee minimum anywhere they go, and often more.
EDIT: quick followup to a bunch of answers. I'm not sure I said it was completely irrational, but... weird. This was just in the last several years - people are paying $400+/credit hour, and using credit/debit cards for everything. Yes, I remember only having a few $ in my pocket, back when the world lived on cash, and conserving every dollar was of the utmost importance. Charging people $1/night... inevitably on a card... nets you about .70c. My point was to try to at least break even, and provide a service to some folks. Making $4/night from 5-6 people, then spending $5 in coffee/tea/snacks... I'm losing money. I guess if I made it up in volume and sold it to a VC, I'd have been rolling in it. As it was, I didn't. It was an idea I floated by people, and it was not received well.
Thank you for the responses.