When you hear the words third place, what immediately comes to mind? If you’re watching the Olympics, you’ll likely think of the bronze medals that are awarded to athletes who finished behind first place (gold medals) and second place (silver medals). If you’re at Churchill Downs on Derby Day, you’ll probably think of a horse that finishes the race in third place. At the track, you can wager on your horse to Win (first place), Place (second place), or Show (third place).
What Is a Third Place?
The Cracker Barrel Restaurant and Country Store evokes the friendly, homespun general stores from the 1800s, when the U.S. was a rural society. Ray and Wilma Yoder are from Goshen, Indiana. Married for 60 years, they have visited all 648 Cracker Barrel stores. They say “It’s nice when you’re out there driving that there’s a place that can be so much like home when you’re away from home.”
Far from cities and towns and often isolated, the country store was the equivalent of the civic center for many rural areas
As it was the only store for miles around, people would hitch up their mules and come long distances with their families to buy feed, seed, bib overalls, union suits, implements, fabrics, needles and threads, kerosene and lanterns, sundries, medical remedies, dry goods, pickles, tobacco, knives, ammunition, nails, ropes, candies, and buggy whips. The owner was often also the postmaster, town clerk, and Justice of the Peace.
Locals treated these general stores as social centers
They were places to play checkers (on an overturned empty cracker barrel with a spittoon nearby), whittle, and share news and gossip. Women would bring eggs and chickens to sell. Men talked with each other about the weather, crops, and politics. In winter, people would gather around potbellied stoves. In summer, they’d fan themselves on the porch. In Colorado, one merchant staked two prospectors to $70 in provisions in return for one-third of anything they found. The merchant’s small investment paid him an income of $50,000 a month and he became a U.S. Senator.
Who is Ray Oldenburg?
He was an urban sociologist who wrote about the importance of informal public gathering places. He believed they were a significant part of civic engagement, a functioning civil society, and democracy itself. His first book, The Great Good Place, argues that informal gathering places are crucial for fostering community and civility, too.
Oldenburg called home the first place and work the second place, the two social environments where adults spend most of their time
He said third places are also citizen places, locations where people go to connect with their communities by having informal conversations, exchanging ideas, building relationships, and just plain enjoying themselves in friendly surroundings.
Oldenburg also emphasized that third places are necessary for personal and public well-being
“The development of the individual depends on meeting people from different walks of life and getting to know them. That’s good for the individual, and it’s good for the community. If you choose your own friends all the time, they’ll be too much like you. But if you go to another place, you have no control over who’s around you, and that’s the beauty of it.”
There are many examples of third places, including diners, bodegas, coffeehouses, and neighborhood taverns.
The Encyclopedia of Milwaukee says that in the early 1800s, networks of dirt roads connected nearby towns. Wayside taverns along those roads were places where travelers knew they could get food, drink, and a bed for the night. These same taverns were also neighborhood gathering places where people from the surrounding area got together socially with families, friends, and neighbors. Taverns were the foundations of Wisconsin’s social life.
Another type of third place is those where people can gather without food and drink, such as libraries, bookstores, barbershops, and beauty parlors. In addition to places of business, third places can also be playgrounds, people parks, and dog parks.
Later in life, Oldenburg left the city for the suburbs
He immediately noticed the lack of third places. He said “What suburbia cries for are the means for people to gather easily, inexpensively, regularly, and pleasurably — a ‘place on the corner,’ real life alternatives to television, easy escapes from the cabin fever of marriage and family life that do not necessitate getting into an automobile.”
Oldenburg solved the problem of the lack of third places in the suburbs
“I converted our two-car garage into a bar, creating my own third place. I lucked onto a genuine mahogany cabinet and stocked it with liquor. The refrigerator is full of beer, there’s a little wine fridge, and so on. I don’t like to drink that much anymore but I like to think I’m a decent host. We have regular hours, Wednesday and Sunday. All sorts of people come over: the library staff at the university, a brother-in-law, a retired physician and many others. I even added a little private spot where I could step away when I needed to, because some people are so boring that they’ll kill you as you stand there.”
Ray Oldenburg said true third places share each of these characteristics:
- People from all walks of life gather there. You will find people like yourself and people who are not like you at all – everyone is welcome.
- People have a sense of belonging because it feels like “a home away from home.”
- People are free to come and go as they please because it’s neutral territory.
- Good-natured conversation is the main activity while food, drink, games, and amusements set a playful mood that encourages people to linger longer.
- There is a core of regulars but newcomers are always welcomed. Two well-known third places with a core of regulars are a Boston bar named Cheers (Norm, Cliff Clavin, Frasier Crane) and a quirky New York City coffeehouse called Central Perk, the home away from home hangout for six friends from Greenwich Village.
Harold Schultz borrowed the idea of friendly social spaces for his Starbucks cafes
Positioning his Starbucks stores as neighborhood gathering centers, Schultz called Starbucks the third place in people’s lives after home and work. The Journal of Consumer Research disagreed when they ran an article that said “Starbucks has become a cultural icon for all the rapacious excesses, predatory intentions, and cultural homogenization that social critics attribute to globalization.” Ray Oldenburg called Starbucks a pseudo third place because it only pretends to be a community center.
Why is Ray’s opinion important?
Because he was the first to use the term third place to describe social surroundings apart from our primary and secondary social environments, home (our first place and where we spend most of our time), and work (our second place).
The University of Chicago was located in a downtown neighborhood
A group from the Sociology department became interested in the daily lives of those who lived and worked in the area. These pioneers in urban sociology were referred as the Chicago School. Please note that here the word “school” does not refer to a building or a bunch of fish swimming along together. Instead, it is a school of thought, a way of thinking where perspectives, philosophies, and methods are shared by all its members.
The Chicago School of sociologists at the University of Chicago were interested in human behavior, particularly urban behavior as shaped by social structures and physical environments rather than genetic and personal characteristics.
Urban sociologists like Oldenburg study cities and urban life
They examine the social, political, cultural, economic, and environmental factors that shape communities. Oldenburg believed that community hangouts designed for socializing are essential breeding grounds for social connections and community vitality as well as giving people a sense of belonging to something larger than themselves.
So why is Starbucks not an authentic third place?
To Oldenburg, Starbucks is about consumption, not community. It is missing one of the crucial criteria that define a third place. It is most assuredly not a place where the main activity is ongoing informal discussions.
Many people lament how far Starbucks has wandered from its original concept
What was once a sit-down coffee shop where people hung out with their laptops is long gone. These days, nearly three of every four customers order from the mobile app or the drive-thru. That’s quite a contrast from 1995, when a Starbucks spokesman said “We don’t want to become just another commodity product … It’s not the way we want people to discover the Starbucks experience.”
Starbucks got rid of most of the things loyal customers came for
The personal touches that defined Starbucks are mostly gone. They replaced the original comfortable chairs with metal stools, hardy conducive to relaxed lounging.
They took away the tables
Most of the convenient electric outlets have been removed, leaving customers unable to charge their devices. They even removed the customer toilets, a real setback for people drinking bladder irritants and diuretics. This particular move keeps customers from staying too long.
Brian Niccol, the new CEO, says they’re reimagining and evolving the Starbucks experience
His message is simple: We’re getting back to Starbucks. Niccol says the company is “refocusing on what has always set Starbucks apart — a welcoming coffeehouse where people gather. Our stores will be inviting places to linger, with comfortable seating, thoughtful design, and a clear distinction between ‘to-go’ and ‘for here’ service.” Niccol said the new Starbucks experience will be accomplished by making investments in technology.”
So much for the welcoming coffeehouse where people gather
Some of the Starbucks evolution so far includes curbside-pickup, take-out-only stores, delivery-only-stores, and drive-thru-only stores, which remind many of those one-day photo sheds in the middle of mall parking lots. Starbucks has plans to close hundreds of their cafes and replace them with the new versions as the chain become more like fast food than anyone’s idea of a third place.
How Starbucks Devalued Its Own Brand
That’s the headline of a June 2024 article in Harvard Business Review. Authors B. Joseph Pine II and Louis-Étienne Dubois say Starbucks has strayed from its strategy of delivering exceptional experiences to its customers and will now focus on volume and efficiency. The goal of maximizing shareholder value has resulted the unintended consequence of alienating long-time customers who remember what it once was. Many long-time customers say they sorely miss the personal touches of orders being handwritten on cups, the aroma of roasting and grinding coffee beans, and what some call a massive failure – the addition of value meals that feature breakfast croissant sandwiches that will be served all day. This sounds a lot like Starbucks is secretly repositioning itself as a fast food outlet, not as a community’s third place.
These days, three out of four Starbucks orders are for cold drinks
Stores built and configured to serve hot beverages means its employees can’t make and serve cold beverages as quickly. Delays are also caused by the prevalence of complicated orders and “top this” orders, such as the Mocha Chocolata Ya Ya Double Caf Double Decaf Oat Milk With a Double Shot of My Baby’s Love (apologies to Patti LaBelle and the Swingin’ Medallions).
This means, of course, that the line of people waiting to order gets longer inside and at the drive-thru. Long waits in long lines of cars for the drive-thru are not likely to give customers a sense of community, warmth, connection, or belonging.
Starkbucks most popular drink costs $7
Seasonal coffees such as Pumpkin Spice Lattes also cost $7. The Hocus Pocus Frappucino costs $14, and customized made-to-order cold brews can easily cost $20 or more. The most expensive beverage sold at Starbucks was a Super Venti Flat White with 170 espresso shots and coconut milk that cost the record holder $148.99. It contained 11,000 milligrams of caffeine, something cardiologists call “a heart attack in a cup.”
Oldenburg would tell you that sitting in your car in long lines for the drive-thru is anything but the third place that founder Howard Schultz sold the idea of a coffee shop “where people could gather, relax, and talk.” Today Starbucks is running an assembly line. With the focus on efficiency, can the robots be far behind, Howard? Or better yet, vending machines.
Starbucks is looking at several ways to turn things around
One is the aforementioned re-investing in the comfort and amenities enjoyed by customers who want to hang out. Another is building where no one comes inside. Right now, corporate teams are seriously considering charging customers an admission fee just to come inside, meaning customers will pay a dollar or two for the privilege of standing in line to buy a cup of coffee. Another idea Starbucks came up with is selling memberships, things that signal exclusivity when third places are supposed to be egalitarian.
Brookings.edu and others say that Young Moderns no longer have physical third places
They get their sense of community from social media, joining online groups, and playing online games. Oldenburg says that by definition, third places can’t be virtual because online there are no naturally occurring face-to-face interactions.
There is nothing like meeting someone face-to-face
One of the crucial elements of third places is that people build a sense of community through tace-to-face interactions with others who live and work in the same geographic area. Zoom meetings and Skype and any other sort of teleconferencing only allow you to see the electronic image of someone who’s not there with you. Usually you just see a talking head, simulated by software and a stream of electrons. They’re not face-to-face interactions where you and a real-life, flesh-and-blood person can see each other and offer a handshake. In person, you get a good look at the surroundings because you have peripheral vision. That ability is useless to you when you are looking at someone on a small screen that resembles a bizarre episode of Hollywood Squares. Face-to-face is life-sized, and you can read body language, too, instead of just facial expressions. ‘Nuf said.
These days, conversation in Starbucks have nearly disappeared
Young Moderns in particular isolate themselves from those around them by listening to music and podcasts through headphones or earbuds. And even if they’re not listening to anything, most are shutting out the world by burying themselves in their smartphones and ignoring the environment around them. This squanders opportunities to interact with those around them.
The BBC says
Brits are losing their third places as independent neighborhood pubs are crowded out by cookie-cutter, mass-market franchises. Do you really want to go to one of 138 TGI Friday’s on your European vacation?
Informal social interaction and a sense of connection with the community are essential to a democracy
The University of Chicago English Language Institute says “The United States is a multicultural and multilingual country. When we connect with members of our community at third places, we find people who share racial, ethnic, linguistic, religious, sexual, and gender identities with us. It can be incredibly affirming to find people who have identities similar to our own in our own community, so that we can share experiences and support each other.
Equally important is how third places provide a space to meet people from different cultures and with different backgrounds and life experiences, which encourage us to empathize with people of different identities. We can learn about the experiences of those different from us and use our resources to support our community, standing in solidarity no matter if we share an identity or not. Third places make us feel as if we belong to a society bigger than ourselves.”
Oldenburg believes third places are crucial to the well-being of individuals and communities. They are essential to civic engagement, informal social control, grassroots democracy, and the development of cohesion and a sense of community.
Bonus
Oldenburg says third places serve a nation’s very important functions
- True third places serve as forums where people learn to behave courteously, listen to what others have to say, think before they speak, and disagree respectfully.
- They foster neighborhood unity.
- They generate social capital.
- And more than any single thing, they promote democracy.
