Are bars the last great "third place"?

Earlier this week, Starbucks rolled out a new “Code of Conduct” for their cafes. The headline- grabbing change was a directive straight from the chief executive: You can’t pee for free.

Beginning soon, restrooms and seating at Starbucks will only be available to paying customers. Baristas are currently being trained on enforcing this rule. The “no loitering” decree puts to rest the years of controversy and wishy-washiness over the coffee chain’s previous policy of (sometimes) letting people hang out in their stores without buying anything.

We can safely assume that Starbucks’s new bathroom policy was driven by a profit motive. They’re in the business of selling ice cream disguised as coffee, not providing free living space for the masses. For Starbucks, shifting urban problems onto their staff and visitors has always been a money-losing proposition.

I personally have mixed feelings about the bathroom policy–but also, I totally get it. A close family member worked as a Starbucks barista and had to deal with smeared feces, used needles, verbal abuse, and intoxicated people on the regular. The hassles and hazards of maintaining a busy public restroom were beyond what retail employees should be expected to handle, and they were a major issue in the unionization push that began to gain momentum in 2022.

It’s unclear whether the ancillary effects of the new policy will be pro-customer or pro-labor, or both or neither. It’s also uncertain how many other businesses will follow suit, adopting the minimum order and the bathroom lock. Starbucks’s enormous influence is likely to give other businesses cover to become even less hospitable to the public. “Welcome in,” chirps the barista in the green apron. “Take your mobile order and get out,” say the sparse aluminum stools, fluorescent lights, and blaring music at a coffee shop or taco joint near you.

It’s just the latest corporate decision that erodes (in an admittedly trivial way) the quality of urban life. It’s another step toward creating cities and suburbs that are more expensive and more isolating than ever.

The roles and responsibilities of “third places” are always being discussed and debated. Starbucks (and fellow coffee giants like McDonald’s) are often seen as a bellwether, an indicator of what we should expect from the corporate leaders of these semi-public spaces.

The concept of the “third place” can be attributed to urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg. The term was coined in 1982, and explored in-depth in his 2000 book Celebrating The Third Place. Home is the “first place” and work is the “second place.” The “third place” is a community space that fosters more spontaneous, more creative, and often more fulfilling interactions between people.

That means for at least 43 years we’ve been talking about the importance of these venues to the structure of society and to human happiness. While there are many other factors at play, the decline of third places has often been cited as a cause of the loneliness epidemic that is a major health risk to Americans of all age groups.

Oldenburg has a list of eight characteristics that define a third place. But for the sake of conciseness, I prefer The Atlantic’s recent definition, “A physical location other than work or home where there’s little to no financial barrier to entry and where conversation is the primary activity.”

The coffee shop is the archetypal third place–which is why Starbucks’s bathroom-blocking salvo hits so directly. But there are others: Parks, libraries, community centers, town squares, suburban malls and their successors, the multi-use developments.

It’s not that third places don’t exist anymore. It’s that they’re not accessible to everyone as city budgets become increasingly strained. And when they are accessible, they’re not equally pleasant, depending on where you go and who you are. Where you can afford to live largely determines the quality of the shared spaces you get to enjoy.

Big chains like Starbucks, for all their faults, could provide a consistent welcoming experience in the communities where they operated. A place for the classes to rub elbows, if only for a while. One fascinating 2023 study of cell phone location data suggested that mid-market food chains are the places where you’re most likely to encounter people of a different economic class than your own. It’s Chili’s, Applebee’s, and Outback–not churches, parks, or schools.

One pernicious result of income inequality has been the stratification of leisure space, including in private property like coffee shops. As the number of have-nots increases, the practicality of providing free amenities like bathrooms for all of them diminishes.

At the same time, as the wealth of the top echelon grows, the rewards for catering to their tastes and preferences become irresistible. (And they’d rather not look at poors while they sip their flat white, okay?) Truly public spaces are closing. The ones that remain are shrinking, becoming more walled-off and more exclusive. And as Starbucks just reminded us, many of these places are all about business first, community second.

So the, bar. Every time I read some think piece about the decline in third places, my first thought is, “Yeah, these pundits are right.” My second thought is, “Wow, I really feel bad for people who don’t drink.” Because the bar will always be there–and for adults at least, bars are the closest thing we have to the ideal third place.

While the coffee shop atmosphere–and arguably, the casual restaurant experience–have gone down the toilet since the pandemic, bars have barely slipped at all. Somehow, bars have continued to be a nice place to kill some time or meet new friends.

What’s so special about the bar? Yes, bars have booze (duh) but there’s more to it than that. A bar is a place with low social expectations but almost infinite possibilities.

You can brood over a dry martini if you want. Everyone will basically leave you alone, because people sometimes go to bars to be alone. Better yet, it’s okay to be alone at the bar. You might be waiting for someone…or not. Without any judgment, you can pull out a book or phone to look at and let the ambient hum of conversation suffice for human contact.

But people also go to bars for an hour or two of low-stakes interaction. At the bar, it’s acceptable to talk to strangers. You can chat with the bartender or a seatmate and have a new best friend, at least for a while. A little alcohol makes conversation flow, and it’s easy enough to leave or move seats if the interaction has run its course. This is one of my favorite attributes of the third place: The ability to come and go as you please, free from the social obligations associated with being either a host or a guest.

There’s no hurry at the bar. Unlike ordering a meal at a table, you’re rarely pressured to leave at a bar unless you’re being an ass. I bet someday soon we’ll see a leaked employee memo from Starbucks about how long is okay to stick around for a coffee and how to kick someone out who’s overstayed. But you have to misbehave pretty badly to get bounced from a pub.

At the bar, you can pop in for a cheeky pint, or waste away the better part of an afternoon. There’s no clock on the wall and the check comes only when you ask for it. Unlike restaurants–which are always pushing unwanted appetizers, desserts, and add-ons–upsell pressure is rarely present. At the bar, it’s taboo to encourage people to drink more than they want to or to migrate away from their chosen favorite.

The cost of being in a bar is not zero, but it’s not that high, either. A drink is cheaper than a meal and it buys you a little time away from traffic, weather, the responsibilities of work and family. As long as you’re decent to the people around you, you can stay.

As much as I like to whine about the price of drinks (and mocktails), they’re usually less costly than gym memberships and theater tickets and other ways you might venture out of the house to meet people. When considered dollar-per-hour, hanging out at a bar can be one of the less expensive ways to pass time in the city.

To be sure, the medical effects of alcohol use are concerning and bars are not the healthiest places for every adult. They aren’t safe or fun for minors or recovering alcoholics. It would certainly be better to have more third-place options that aren’t centered around drinking.

Coffee shops used to be that way. Independent bookstores were a third place, once upon a time. Dog parks and people parks can be, when they aren’t part of a gated community or apartment development. But one by one, other third places are pulling up the drawbridge–while bars, generally speaking, have kept the lights on and the glasses polished.

I’m not sure how bars have managed to stay welcoming and flexible oases even as the demands on public spaces have increased. I’m not sure why they’ve escaped the spiral of enshittification that has sucked in the coffee shops and many restaurants. I’m sure there are some solid economic theories that might explain it–but to my eyes, it just seems like magic.

The bar to me is a romantic space. A place where you can walk in without a reservation and be treated like a welcome guest. A place where you can raise a glass with people from all walks of life–or if you prefer, ignore them without any consequences.

Starbucks doesn’t want to be that place anymore. Fine. They have some valid reasons, I suppose. But now that they’ve helped drive most independent coffee shops out of business, it does feel like a loss.

I have many fond memories of afternoon dates and productive mornings working from coffee shops–but that experience has become so rushed, expensive, and unpleasant that I haven’t gone near one in months. If bars eventually become the last welcoming waystations in the big city, you know where to find me.