Third places and neighborhood entrepreneurship (2024)

They had been!

But in 2024, Brian Niccols pitched the "Back to Starbucks" plan, with point 3 of his 4 point focus being, "Reestablishing Starbucks as the community coffeehouse."[1] He said, "Our stores will be inviting places to linger, with comfortable seating, thoughtful design and a clear distinction between “to-go” and “for-here” service."

Whether or not that's working is another story[2]. Long story short is that Scooters, Dutch Bros. and other brands are doing drive-thru better, and cafe attendance is down 22% since before the pandemic.

Consumer tastes have shifted. And given Gen Z's preference for online interaction over in-person, I'm not sure if Starbucks will be able to steer the ship.

If I were Starbucks, I'd strongly consider splitting the branding on the cafes and drive-thrus. Keep the Starbucks brand with the drive-thrus, then try opening a few new cafes as a new brand. Worst case scenario, you rebrand those cafes as Starbucks. I bet they've talked about it.

1: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/10/new-starbucks-ceo-brian-nicc... 2: https://intelligence.coffee/2025/05/back-to-starbucks-long-o...

> "Reestablishing Starbucks as the community coffeehouse."

What a load of corporate bullshit. Unlike any other community coffee house, this one made almost $10b in profit last year. I wonder how much the "community" really benefits from this.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/SBUX/financials/

We're literally commenting on a scholarly article that describes how the community benefits from Starbucks locations.

>Unlike any other community coffee house, this one made almost $10b in profit last year. I wonder how much the "community" really benefits from this

That's around $60k per store. That sounds like a very reasonable number for an absentee coffee shop owner (which is basically what the shareholders are).

Assuming that’s going to the store which I very much doubt.

Oh snap.

When a company makes a profit, that doesn't necessarily mean they made anyone else worse off. In general, when in a competitive environment, and dealing with customers who are responsible adults (which both hold in the case of the restaurant industry), we should presume that everyone is being made better off by the transactions, that it's a win-win situation.

It does when this is the same company that threatens employees who want to unionize.

Hard to extol the virtues of profit when it results in this. I'm sure the owner love it tho.

The word "profit" means that this is the money which is by definition not going to the store. Any money which goes to the store is not counted into profits.

Well, a union is a form of cartel, it's an anti competitive organization of market participants who are colluding to set prices and extract other concessions from labour buyers. They therefor undermine the ability of markets to maximize value for all participants.

> They therefor undermine the ability of markets to maximize value for all participants.

Currently markets are not maximizing value for all participants, only the wealthiest and owners, so frankly I don't think anyone should give a damn about them

"Labour Buyers" should be counting their blessings if workers just unionize right now

You're acting as if capitalists treat their workers well under the current system when the opposite has occurred. Nearly $50 trillion was stolen from workers [1] by the capitalists owners in the US. Income inequality is literally at worse levels than just prior to the French Revolution.

The first politician to offer $1 trillion in federal assistance to middle/lower classes (free healthcare, free university/vocational training, public housing, public jobs) will absolutely control the electorate at both sides of the aisles.

Remember that redistribution of wealth are very popular American activities. It swings both ways.

[1] https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WRA516-1.html

There is definitely a split in coffeehouses. You see all the coffeehouses that have all the laptops open. (If maybe less active socializing.) And then you have the drive-through lines for lattes around the block. Not sure how you reconcile. Could block WiFi but then I imagine a lot of people would just use their phones. (Or skip.)

There maybe is an old European style of coffeehouses but nut sure that's been hit on beyond a very local level.