What Really Keeps Me Coming Back to Starbucks
Starbucks has become an integral part of my life. Since the pandemic, I’ve spent most of my time here, crafting many of my blogs. Over the years, I’ve even made a few Starbucks friends through daily interactions, whether it’s while purchasing beverages at the counter or bargaining for the last remaining power socket to charge my dying laptop.
It wasn’t always like this, though.
My First Sip
The first time I paid any heed to Starbucks was actually 13 years ago. This Starbucks store was located in downtown Toronto, just off the Kings Street and Young intersection. On a typical Canadian winter Saturday evening, wearing a wollen jacket with my ears freezing, I popped in for a drink.
I went up to the counter and ordered a Sumatra blend. I then sat down at this long communal table in the center of the room. The place was crowded; people were coming in and going out with their piping hot go-to cups. I looked at my watch; my date was late.
I looked around.
In the corner of my table, I saw a couple (from a nearby university) crouched together over a laptop, sipping a cup that appeared to contain more cream than coffee. They seemed to be doing a college project, from what little I could hear.
I glanced at the other people at the table. Almost all of them had laptops open and were either working or on their phones, chatting away with their eyes fixated on the screen.
Every now and then, a new Starbucks employee would interrupt my observation to call out an order, almost certainly mispronouncing someone’s name.
I looked at the time on my phone. The trains were probably running late, so I pulled out my laptop and decided to check my email.
That cold winter evening, when I made first contact with Starbucks, I had no idea that I would return time and time again for days and years to come, even when I didn’t need to.
Here are some of the reasons why.
The Experience
If there is one thing that seized me that day and continues to do so today, it is most certainly the feeling, or, as some would say, the experience. Let me be very honest here. There are far better cafes that roast coffee beans than Starbucks can.
Starbucks blends are on a good day, somewhere between good and better.
Coffee is not the reason I visit Starbucks. Coffee is the ticket that gets me in to enjoy the Starbucks experience.
So, what is this Starbucks experience?
When I visited Starbucks eight years ago in a suburb in Mumbai, India, I noticed how much it resembled the stores in the West. Soft light from the bulbs bathed the wooden tables and chairs all around me, almost setting the stage for me to pull out my laptop and get to work.
Like most chains, the establishment is well maintained by its staff, keeping it in tip-top condition.
The music is the same across most chains — not too loud, but just enough to become the background sound for your conversations over coffee.
You eventually begin to identify a few people from your everyday life and realize that they are exact replicas of you, working at Starbucks.
The Vibe
Starbucks has a certain type of vibe. It isn’t something you can really put your finger on. It’s got something for everybody.
On one occasion, I ran into a former IT associate who had quit his 9-to-5 “boring” tech job as a testing engineer. He tried to persuade me to join his business, without disclosing what it was, and then invited me to meet his founder.
Late one night in Starbucks (needless to say, after keeping me waiting for an hour until I had sampled their Sumatra, Kenyan and even Christmas Blend) his shifty-eyed founder arrived. He then began to interview me, which sounded more like an interrogation, as to whether I had read the 21st-century enlightenment works of a certain Robert Kiyosaki, author of the book “Rich Dad Poor Dad”.
Once I saw where this was going, it was me who became shifty-eyed, and along with the caffeine overdose, I sheepishly excused myself. Until the end, he refused to tell me more about their work until I accepted that the salaried class is bonded labor to corporate interests and that they were there to liberate me.
Was this vibe amazing? Hell No !! It was unique though.
I ran into quite a few more (genuine) founders after that and made their acquaintance too.
Every now and then I would find myself sitting next to a table where two suits would converge and talk of private equity and funding rounds, before the number crunching would just flow out naturally. I have often wondered whether people today have started cementing business deals in cafes instead of golf courses.
The Homework
Speaking about golf courses, this Starbucks joint eventually became too crowded for me, and I couldn’t let my middle-class self be intimidated by talks of minicorns, unicorns, etc., leaving me feeling like a paupercorn.
I moved to another Starbucks and was surprised to find the ambience exactly the same but the vibe different.
The average age group of this chain was 17–19 (going by my observations).
On the second day, I observed that a few patrons of Starbucks had come in. Along with them was a girl with a cream-covered Java chip coffee who sat alone solving differential equation problems in mathematics on a writing pad. I looked again, unsure whether to believe what I was seeing.
At times, college students would walk into the cafe at 11:00 p.m. on the guise of discussing a project assignment but would eventually get down to doing it after lots of noisy banter.
Only a few decades ago, I remember myself sitting on a desk at home, swatting at mosquitoes in the heat of the summer, while solving these same equations.
The times have truly changed.
There was a time when work was the last thing on your mind when you visited a coffee shop.
There was also a time when fancy take-away cups for coffee were rare.
There was a time when simple blends were all you got, before any pumpkin, mistletoe, cinnamon, gingerbread, or soon-to-be invented flavor would be tossed in for an inflated price.
We have gone from conversations over coffee to coffee over the workplace.
