Starbucks As Social Hangout

People criticize Starbucks. They see it as a kind of Walmart, running local coffee houses out of business. Well, maybe not. After all, unlike Walmart, Starbuck's doesn't try to cut prices much. A good coffeehouse sells their stuff in the same price range.

Some don't like Starbuck's overly roasted coffee, which cause some to nickname Starburnts.

And many people think, as coffeehouses go, Starbuck's doesn't engender the kind of homey, albeit arty, atmosphere that most coffeehouses have.

But, oddly enough, despite all that, despite the fact that it's easier to find a Starbucks than a McDonald's, despite the blandness of most Starbucks interiors, there are so many of them, that a few of them are bound to have regulars.

I go to one on Muddy Branch, and some elderly folks like to hang out there. I've been to one in Germantown next door to a Safeway. One night I was there, and there were a bunch of high school Asian kids, seemingly their after some other get-together, getting their lattes or what-have-you.

So somehow, despite Starbucks rather clunky means, there are some Starbucks where people do hangout, sit in the morning, chat some. It does somehow work. It's sad that Starbuck's doesn't try a bit harder to create a warmer atmosphere, but even so, it sorta works.

And the crowd it attracts? It's not the goth crowd or the arty crowd where the likely hanger on has a portfolio or has smoked something or is wearing heavy rimmed glasses or prefers to wear black. It might be the kind of crowd that used to hang out at diners who asked for a cup of joe when that cost 10 cents and tasted like tar.

While I would prefer to spend my money on a local coffeehouse, I can't deny the convenience that is Starbucks. And I sit and observe a few folks that hang out there and marvel that such a commercially crass place like Starbucks, so cookie cutter in its conception, somehow manages to do what coffeehouses are supposed to do, almost i spite of itself, and that is to get people to connect.