Starbucks is “reclaiming the ‘third place.’”
That’s what its chief executive, Brian Niccol, proclaimed in an October earnings call, after the coffee giant suffered a slide in sales and store traffic.
He was echoing a statement he had made when he started the job in September — that he wanted to re-establish Starbucks as “a gathering space” where people want “to linger” — a vibe that some say has been lost as drive-through and mobile pickup orders have come to outnumber longer visits.
How it’s pronounced
/thûrd plās/
The term “third place” was coined by the urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg in his 1989 book, “The Great Good Place.” It refers to spaces outside of home and work (one’s first and second places) where friends and strangers can gather unrushed — like cafes, bars, hair salons, dog parks and gyms. In some conceptions, the term refers to places where you don’t have to buy anything to hang out.
Mr. Oldenburg’s coinage filled a linguistic gap — the value of public gathering spaces was well known but there was no term for it. His phrase took hold and remains popular.
The phrase “third places” came up more than 2,500 times over the last 12 months in academic and professional publications across disciplines, with the articles addressing the role these spots play in everything from design and entrepreneurship to identity groups and mood.
Columbia Business School published research about how third places can open economic opportunities, and Forbes wrote about arts-and-crafts workshops as third places. Vox advised, “If you want to belong, find a third place.” And The Week bemoaned the lost art of hanging out amid a disappearance of third places.
That lament is a recurring one, and the pandemic is partly to blame.
Digital habits forged during Covid lockdowns have drastically changed how people gather. Mr. Oldenburg, who died in 2022, co-wrote an essay that year challenging the notion that virtual spaces can ever replace physical ones and criticizing coffee chains’ new focus on app users.
For its part, Starbucks says it is trying to reposition itself as a “third place” through changes, like offering free coffee refills and bringing back ceramic mugs and comfortable seating. (In a January earnings call, Mr. Niccol said Starbucks was making “nice progress” on these fronts.)
But Starbucks is reversing an open-door rule that had welcomed anyone, customer or not, to hang out in its stores and use its bathrooms. “We strive to be a third place for our customers,” said Jaci Anderson, a company spokesperson, adding that this “requires us to be clear what is expected of people who want to use our spaces.”
Gwendolyn Purifoye, an assistant professor at the University of Notre Dame, examined the pandemic’s impact on third places in a September article in the journal Visual Studies. The physical constraints created by Covid protocols, she noted, kept people away from their favorite spots, and ultimately led many businesses to shutter, a permanent loss for communities.
Ms. Purifoye said in an interview that she had come to appreciate at least one virtual third place in her life — an online writing workshop that started during the pandemic and that she still attends. Community, she believes, can be created in digital spaces.
Still, she said, “Public leisure space is critical for society. If you don’t build places to gather, it makes us more strange, and strangeness creates anxiety.”
