Maybe Starbucks Has Simply Been Eclipsed as The Third Place?
Starbucks Coffee’s announcement of cafe closures in the central business districts of several superstar cities has received a lot of attention, and appears to be a move away from its “Third Place” function. The coffee giant claims that a shift towards more pickup/delivery-only locations will do the opposite, by reducing in-store congestion at the traditional coffeehouses that remain in a post-COVID world. I wonder, however, whether the move is to some degree a concession to the reality that, in contrast to when the green mermaid first arrived in the urban core many years ago, most such areas now boast a wealth of indie/artisanal coffeehouses that outflank it in this regard. Indeed, pre-COVID, the Starbucks Coffee locations in the heart of Manhattan always felt more like miniature versions of Grand Central Terminal than places where everyone knew my name…