Starbucks

The Killer Third Place

In September, Starbucks brought on Brian Niccol, a new CEO who wants to take the company back to its roots as a “third place”: a smaller menu, new “coffee condiment bar,” and the return of Sharpie-written names on cups. Niccol also wants to enhance popular features that Starbucks has become known for, including a robust drink customization experience and easy grab-and-go mobile ordering. These missions seem at odds with one another. How can you make Starbucks a place where people want to spend time with friends and strangers, while also encouraging people to order from their phones and dip in and out as fast as possible?

Brian testing out a Quesalupa in 2016.

Well, Niccol is already succeeding at the former goal; this week, fellow CEO Brian Thompson of UnitedHealth was shot outside of a Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, his unknown assassin reportedly coming straight from a nearby Starbucks. Niccol’s dream of a third place, epitomizing Howard Schultz’s original vision from forty years ago, has been realized; Starbucks is a place to congregate or anonymize, blending in while fueling up before heading out for a hard day’s work, as they do at the Italian espresso cafes which inspired the chain to become as we now know it.

Starbucks used to just sell beans at retail prices. Its cafes started as “Il Giornale,” a separate venture founded by Schultz after he left Starbucks to pursue “espresso dreams.” His relationship with his old employer remained friendly, though, as Starbucks eventually became the first investor in Schultz’s new cafe, which used Starbucks beans. In 1987, Starbucks sold its name and assets to Schultz, and Il Giornale became Starbucks proper: no longer just a place to buy coffee, but a place to be (that sold coffee, too).

This would fix everything.

This place-ness continued to develop through the 90s, the decade of second wave coffee shops. In 1996, Starbucks overhauled its interiors, introducing an iconic “purple chair” as the best seat in the house to drink some mocha java. The Starbucks archive explains:

When we opened in 1971, we offered no seating at all – we added stools and dining chairs when we opened our first espresso bars in 1987. But as the company grew, our stores evolved to become a third place between home and work. In 1996 we overhauled our aesthetic accordingly, abandoning stiff elements for a more lived-in look. Hello, purple chair.

Starbucks soon became the kind of place where you’d look forward to hearing Norah Jones over the speakers and see people dressed like Phoebe Buffay. If the chain did anything to explicitly associate itself with modern liberal aesthetics—the so-called, pre-“woke” “woke” coffee shop—it was this. When you think of Starbucks in the 2000s, you’re actually thinking of Seattle in the 1990s.

Mind of the average Friends fan.

But Starbucks has since developed in accordance with its hometown. As garish Amazon buildings and character-less start-ups have amassed more and more space in downtown Seattle, Starbucks stores and modus operandi have begun to more closely resemble its corporate peers. They’re flat, streamlined, and generically fascist, offering clean lines, plain facades, and an overall textureless experience. Its app is more robust than store interiors, almost offering a full online banking experience with as many perks and “stars” as a mid-tier, points-based credit card.

This was Howard Schultz’s endgame, though. When he came back to the company as CEO in 2008, he updated Starbucks’ mission statement via his Transformation Agenda Communications: “To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person one cup and one neighborhood at a time.” Schultz vowed to “transform the Starbucks experience” with main goals that included improving the current state of the US business, reigniting the brand’s emotional attachment with customers, and planning for the future while expanding its presence around the world. Starbucks went all in on aesthetics only to strip back what made its brand ubiquitous. The purple chairs were replaced with reclaimed coffee bean shipping container drive-thrus, symbolizing a repurposing of the old towards a new future. What this led to was an era of liberal individualism powered by excessive consumer choice and rising prices, culminating in Schultz not running for President, despite his threats, and Conner O’Malley’s videos begging him to reconsider.

I can’t believe this was pre-COVID.

Schultz is actually a perfect vehicle for neoliberal politics, and he and his wife have donated tens of thousands of dollars to Democrats in elections over the past two decades. O’Malley’s character is the perfect foil for “the man who started Starbucks”; he could be a conservative, a liberal, a zoomer, a boomer. Each demographic has a bone to pick with the brand, but it refuses to, despite its size and scale, retreat into a faceless, McDonald’s-esque shell. That’s not what it is, what Schultz envisioned. Still literally nobody is happy with Starbucks right now, its products, prices, policies, and corporate ideology all falling under heavy scrutiny.

In late 2023, Starbucks filed a lawsuit against “Workers United—the union organizing its employees—because the union had posted a pro-Palestine message on social media.” Though Starbucks has not operated any locations in Israel since the early 2000s, and made it abundantly clear via its website that it in no direct way supports Israel, the company still managed to blunder. Former CEO Laxman Narasimhan said Starbucks stands “for humanity,” refiling its suit with the union claiming it was only pursuing litigation to stop the use of the Starbucks logo in affiliation with any particular political views on the Middle East. But, so they claim, Starbucks respects its workers' individual rights to express their own views without the Green Lady in tow. This tepid sentiment satisfied no one, and for over a year Starbucks has been in corporate limbo: are we allowed to go there? Are we not? Is it because Starbucks is woke? Or, is it because Starbucks is not woke enough?

I think Starbucks is now post-woke, just like the newest blockbuster it has created collaborative drinks to promote(Clare articulated this best here). There are no longer “seasons” at Starbucks; its famous Pumpkin Spice Latte was available in mid-August this year, and its holiday menu launch has been overshadowed by “wickedly delicious drinks” called Glinda’s Pink Potion and Elphaba’s Cold Brew, which are both disgusting, according to my girlfriend. When you open the Starbucks app to order, the first available drink is a cold brew ode to the Wicked Witch of the West, boding matcha foam (green) and peppermint syrup (unexpected). In the past, all we had to look forward to was a themed cup for a comforting hot, wintery drink. Now there is so much more. Isn’t that great?

Defy gravity at Starbucks.

There have always been summer blockbuster-specific products, because summer is mostly holiday-less, and sometimes the only thing that helps you escape the miserable heat of summer is seeing a big, dumb movie. But, unlike a lot of Barbie’s marketing tie-ins (a Barbie DreamHouse in Malibu, a “Barbiecan” tube station in London), Wicked’s are impersonal, un-collective, and also competing with Christmas tie-ins. You are meant to purchase these drinks in your app, pick them up without making eye contact, and post a video reviewing them on your Instagram story. Starbucks allows you the choice to do this, because that is the relationship it has cultivated with you over the past 15 years via the Schultz Method: unfriendly, impersonal, antisocial, but liberating and individualistic because it is, after all, your drink, and the experience having it is magical. Howard Schultz has succeeded, human spirit inspired and nurtured, yet not collectively, only individually.

Nobody is happy with Starbucks, not even Wicked fans. Earlier this year, the BBC interviewed disgruntled customers from all walks of life after Starbucks reported a 2% drop in sales globally, with a 3% decrease in the United States alone. Many complained about price increases, such as Andrew Buckley, who now brews coffee at home because his mocha is too expensive (over $6!). Buckley also noted: “This is a coffee shop. They serve coffee…I don't want to see them in the news,” referring to Starbucks entanglement with its employee union and subsequent calls from activists to boycott the company. While it’s possible this had a negative effect on sales, it's likely moreso on an inability to react and adapt to customer wants and needs.

“Andrew Buckley, a self-described ‘mocha guy’”

Younger customers have simple demands; they are willing to pay a premium for a welcoming space with requisite food and drink. But, as those interviewed by the BBC say, Starbucks “needs to improve its food,” and suffers from “an increasingly corporate vibe.” One patron put it plainly: "It used to be cool in middle school. Now it's just convenient." But convenience is only worth so much. Nobody wants a neoliberal paradise, especially one that costs too much for no clear reason.

Me when I can’t find a seat with an outlet at the Lincoln Center Starbucks.

BBC draws a comparison between Starbucks’ recent woes and Chipotle's in 2015, after E. coli outbreaks were linked to its stores. After years of struggling to shake off its shoddy food safety reputation, Chipotle brought on none other than Brian Niccol, who increased profits, stock price, and retail salaries and benefits. But, while Chipotle just announced an increase in prices, Niccol has affirmed that Starbucks’ prices are staying firm for the next fiscal year. I’m not sure about his commitment to making Starbucks a third place: I believe the Schultzian ideology and aesthetic runs too deep. But recent renovations to my local stores have at least brought back comfy furniture, speedy wifi, and plentiful electrical outlets. Will this be enough for people to congregate once again? Perhaps. But, at least we know that if Niccol proves to be a sham executive, there is recent precedent for an immediate and persuasive solution. Just ask former CEO Laxman Narasimhan, fired after one year.¹

“Punctured bicycle / On a hillside desolate / Will nature make a man of me yet?”

1. What did you think I was going to suggest?