I’ve always had a mixed feeling about Starbucks. Since the pandemic, the coffee giant has turned into my last option, and it appears I’m not the only one feeling this way—U.S. sales recently saw a 6% dip from the previous year.
The company’s new CEO has laid out a plan to turn things around. They’re nixing the extra charges for nondairy milk, streamlining the menu to quicken the ordering process, and bringing back the custom of writing names on cups. But honestly, it’s going to take more than that to win back customers like me. To me, coffee shops serve as “third places,” like libraries and community hubs, where social connections happen.
There was a time when Starbucks filled that role. I even penned parts of my upcoming book sitting in three different locations and expressed my gratitude to them in the acknowledgments. However, a lot has shifted over the years.
Let’s talk about the staff. Watching exhausted employees tackle endless orders with machine-like precision doesn’t exactly scream ‘welcome.’ I don’t expect to become best friends with my barista, but if Starbucks hired more people and didn’t oppose union efforts, the staff might be less overwhelmed, and I’d be more inclined to spend my money there. I want my coffee dollars to support the workforce, not just fatten executives’ and shareholders’ wallets.
These days, buying a coffee is more about finding a spot to be—whether to work, unwind, people-watch, read, or just zone out. The Java inside the cup often becomes secondary; I’m really weighing how the environment might make me feel.
Sociologist Thomas Gieryn speaks about turning spaces into special places, highlighting that “place is doubly constructed” in people’s minds as they attach meaning to a physical space. This is how a bare coffee shop can transform into a “home away from home.” The pandemic raised my expectations and needs, prompting me to invest in places with significance. As a professor, I appreciate the freedom my job offers, but even I tire of my own company, and visiting my favorite local coffee shops wards off the afternoon blues.
Starbucks’ profit-driven ways have long alienated customers like me. Store closures in the Bay Area, where I live, shattered the last bits of brand loyalty. Many locations that survived have reduced seating drastically or removed it entirely. If there is seating, you’ll likely need luck to nab a chair or get a bathroom code before ordering.
That’s why I favor spots like the Bean Bag Cafe on Divisadero Street, where the evening counter staff sometimes embrace regulars. There’s no time for such warmth at Starbucks, which, by the way, isn’t conveniently located near my East Oakland home. Thankfully, places like Cafe Cordoba meet this community need. Spotlessly clean and warmly adorned, this charming cafe caters to a diverse crowd—seniors, families, local club members, and even cops. Enjoying their cinnamon-infused café de olla from a hand-painted mug makes you question why you’d need Starbucks at all.
In today’s world of loneliness and division, we need places for neighbors to come together. While I have suggestions to help Starbucks connect locally, my greater concern is supporting small businesses that build our social framework without a corporation’s financial muscle. Expanding retail tax credits and increasing grants, especially for businesses reviving empty storefronts, could cultivate neighborhood rejuvenation.
Starbucks’ future isn’t a worry for me, and they’re clearly not concerned about mine. Still, we can learn from its identity crisis to consider what public-private partnerships we wish to foster with our local enterprises, regardless of size, so everyone feels welcomed and valued.
Stacy Torres, author of the forthcoming “At Home in the City: Growing Old in Urban America,” is an assistant professor of sociology at UC San Francisco.
