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Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés

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Re: Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés

#91

Post by Terr_ »

explaininjs wrote: post #72
Suppafly wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>every small locally owned coffee shop has become totally overrun with folks buying one latte and proceeding to take a whole table to themselves and their laptops for the next 5 hours. That's what a third place is and what people are lamenting the lack of now.

No, that’s what a second place is. A third place is for socialization, a second place is for work. Just because you’re relying on some independent small business owner to pay rent for your desk while you prevent other customers from patronizing the establishment and don’t talk to anyone, doesn’t make it a third place.

Agreed, but with a caveat: It goes back into "third place" territory if they're engrossed in a laptop-hobby rather than laptop-employment, even though many of the external favors are identical.

Re: Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés

#92

Post by switch007 »

daveoc64 wrote: post #62
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…

In the UK, the IKEA Restaurant offers free hot drinks for IKEA Family members on weekdays - plus all of the other benefits you've mentioned. I would say that the Wi-Fi is important, as the design of most UK IKEA buildings blocks mobile network signals!

IKEA restaurants are my secret (guess the cat is out the bag now haha). I never see anyone else working there. Free unlimited parking too. And Fridays has half price food

Only downside is screaming kids

And yes there's bad mobile signal but Vodafone (famous for having better indoor signal I believe) works ok

Re: Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés

#93

Post by jonathanyc »

jmyeet wrote: post #15

What I don't see in these conversations is how much increasing property prices contribute to killing third places. People get excited because they bought a house for $200k and it's notionally worth $800k now. In reality they haven't gained anything because every house is $800k and you still need somewhere to live so you still only own one housing unit of wealth. Worse, people actively lobby for policies that increase…

I find it particularly infuriating when people want their house to be an “investment” while complaining about increasing rates of homelessness.

How is the price supposed to go up unless supply fails to meet demand?

Re: Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés

#94

Post by anovikov »

lotsoweiners wrote: post #10
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…

> I don’t need a kiosk; I have an espresso machine I can operate at home or in the office. You would probably enjoy the experience of a small, locally owned coffee shop then. Starbucks is optimizing for their profit. In my suburban city, Starbucks has closed most or all locations that were a few miles from the freeway. They built new locations with drive throughs and very little to no seating within a few blocks of e…

Every business is optimised for profit. This is why they exist. Difference is that Starbucks probably can be profitable operating as a kiosk but a mom and pop store can't because it lacks brand value.

Re: Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés

#95

Post by rhplus »

jmyeet wrote: post #15

What I don't see in these conversations is how much increasing property prices contribute to killing third places. People get excited because they bought a house for $200k and it's notionally worth $800k now. In reality they haven't gained anything because every house is $800k and you still need somewhere to live so you still only own one housing unit of wealth. Worse, people actively lobby for policies that increase…

US zoning laws are probably a much bigger factor in keeping neighborhood cafes out of residential areas. The idea of a “corner cafe” - literally a house converted into a store front - simply isn’t possible in most residentially zoned areas.

Re: Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés

#96

Post by doytch »

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?

IIRC (I read this study a few weeks ago), they compared areas where a Starbucks opened; areas where Starbucks planned an expansion but were prevented by things like city planning snafus; and areas where Starbucks opened in non-traditional (eg low income) areas through their partnership with Magic Johnson.

Re: Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés

#97

Post by kmeisthax »

winphone1974 wrote: post #45
kbos87 wrote: post #17

This is an aside, but my how far has Starbucks fallen at the hands of profit optimization. A Starbucks used to be a great place to spend time. Today the interior of almost every Starbucks is cold, beat up, and (intentionally?) uncomfortable. (In the stores where they even still have seating, which another commenter pointed out.) The quality of the product is barely a step above a gas station. On the other hand, my ar…

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?

Different types of business owners want different kinds of return on their investment.

Small business entrepreneurs might be perfectly happy just turning a profit a few years into the venture. In contrast, a stock trader only turns a profit when the business gets more valuable, which requires growth. The business has to make more profit than it did last year. A third place might turn a profit but not provide growth for investors, so they're not going to fund it, they're going to destroy it.

This gets even crazier with private equity, because the fund managers are incentivized[0] to spike growth as quickly as possible. If you ever notice a business rapidly deteriorating, it's because private equity is sucking the blood out of the company. Run.

[0] The split between fund investors and fund management changes once the fund meets its hurdle: an arbitrarily-set amount of profit. After the hurdle is met fund management gets every penny.

Re: Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés

#98

Post by Ekaros »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #9
pessimizer wrote: post #2

Or alternately, neighborhoods with no previous coffee shops where Starbucks start opening are gentrifying.

How do we get the good parts of gentrification without the bad? Is avoiding the bad really worth freezing an area in amber?

Is there good parts? Then again this forum is for those doing the gentrifying. So maybe it is wrong place to ask...

Re: Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés

#99

Post by fragmede »

anovikov wrote: post #94
lotsoweiners wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t need a kiosk; I have an espresso machine I can operate at home or in the office. You would probably enjoy the experience of a small, locally owned coffee shop then. Starbucks is optimizing for their profit. In my suburban city, Starbucks has closed most or all locations that were a few miles from the freeway. They built new locations with drive throughs and very little to no seating within a few blocks of e…

Every business is optimised for profit. This is why they exist. Difference is that Starbucks probably can be profitable operating as a kiosk but a mom and pop store can't because it lacks brand value.

Not necessarily. For now, every business is run by a human being, not AI, so all of the small mom and pop businesses optimize for the whims of the businesses owner. Got that one vendor with the sales person that they like more than the other vendor's because they were rude? Guess who's winning the contract with no oversight? Mom or pop tired today? They're not optimizing for profit, they're taking a nap. Mom feel bad for the customer who's pregnant and who's partner left them? She's not optimizing for profit when she undercharges them on lunch and dinner and breakfast.

Businesses everyone recognizes by name aren't run that way because the layers of capitalism serve to isolate people from the human aspect of their decisions, but there are a lot of businesses that people have never heard of.

Re: Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés

#100

Post by bobthepanda »

niemandhier wrote: post #90
explaininjs wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In LA, every small locally owned coffee shop has become totally overrun with folks buying one latte and proceeding to take a whole table to themselves and their laptops for the next 5 hours.

There are solutions for this. In Italy they charge you for the seat. I have been to places where they charge for a laptop too. In addition you can minimize cellular network reception and charge for wifi.

The last thing is not legal in the US. Marriott got in trouble with the FCC over this.

https://www.cnn.com/2014/10/03/travel/marriott-fcc-wi-fi-fin...

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