Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 12, 2024, 3:54 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #23

trollbridge wrote: post #8

Unfortunately, Starbucks is opening “kiosk only” locations with no seating that, obviously, fail to function as a third place. My partner finished up a medical appointment and was waiting for me to arrive, and decided to stop in Starbucks. Oops, just a kiosk. The options left for a “third place” was a petrol station that had seating and a grocery store. Somehow I don’t think petrol station seating areas will promotin…

> Unfortunately, Starbucks is opening “kiosk only” locations with no seating that, obviously, fail to function as a third place. And when they convert an existing location to kiosk only, the prices do not go down. There are two Starbucks locations in downtown Redwood City, about 250m apart. The one on the right side of the tracks has comfortable seating and tables. The one on the wrong side of the tracks, in the dyin…

Post by spott » Fri, Jul 12, 2024, 3:56 AM UTC

spencerchubb wrote: post #50

The study basically compared neighborhoods that received a Starbucks versus neighborhoods that did not. What if Starbucks decided to open in those neighborhoods because of some confounding factor that suggested an increase in economic activity?

Post by piker » Fri, Jul 12, 2024, 3:59 AM UTC

kevinventullo wrote: post #47

winphone1974 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What seems weird is that with the massive number of Starbucks closures I've seen smaller indies and local chains open up in the exact same locations and somehow make a go of it- how does that work?

Naively, a small shop only needs to pay on-the-ground workers and direct owners who may be a subset of the first group. Starbucks has to pay the regional managers and their bosses and the shareholders, etc. Also, at the mom-and-pop, no one is screaming “Why is the fourth derivative of profit increase not higher??”

Post by Haemm0r » Fri, Jul 12, 2024, 4:01 AM UTC

thundergolfer wrote: post #42

deadbabe wrote: post #36

There’s a nice coffee shop near me but they have somewhat hostile policies toward people wanting to sit on their laptops and work for hours, which makes it hard to be a decent third place. On weekends, laptops are banned entirely.

People sitting on their laptops, usually with headphones, are actually themselves hostile to third places and that's why some cafes ban them on weekends. The definition of a third place is fully incompatible with it being just a remote work location: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

Post by m463 » Fri, Jul 12, 2024, 4:08 AM UTC

firecall wrote: post #12

I've noticed students working in the IKEA Cafes here in Australia! They offer similar benefits to a good sized Starbucks store. Free charging points, WiFi, bench seating in secluded corners and so on. Though I'd wager that WiFi is less important, as people have mobile plans with plenty of data. Given the accommodation crises in Australia, I'd suspect many students dont have a decent place to study in their homes. Man…