...closely followed by desserts. If all you sell is alcohol, desserts and coffee, you will operate a stunningly profitable business. What's the secret? Well, first read this: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_m... Then recognize that coffee shops are to the USA what pubs are to the UK. They fill the same civic hole that Baskin Robbins held for 30 years, something that simply didn't exist before it. Maybe it's because I'm older than a lot of the people here, but I remember when the cafes came. "Coffee culture" didn't slowly evolve, it just sort of... HIT about 1989. I saw a sneak preview of Sleepless in Seattle with my date, who had lived in Tacoma for most of her life before moving out with her dad to New Mexico. She pointed out a Starbuck's in the movie and said "you're going to see a lot of those soon." It seemed odd to me that suddenly everyone would start paying a lot of money for coffee (without first buying a donut) but that's exactly what happened. The coffee shop is the easiest, cheapest, lowest impact third place. And, as the bedroom communities and exurbs metastasize into communities, "coffee shops" help anchor those communities. In essence, a coffee shop charges a nominal fee to a neighborhood in order to exemplify that neighborhood. And not to put too fine a point on it, but they sell addiction - socially-acceptable, minimal-impact addiction. Coffee shops sell caffeine and sugar and they do so for the same price as a pack of cigarettes. They're habit forming. And they often have comfy chairs, free wi-fi and will top up your drip coffee as long as you're in the room. If libraries could charge $2.50 to get people to sit and chill out there'd be one on every corner, too.
I remember this, and that really was about the year it happened. The hangout for my bored teenage friends and I was the local Dennys. We would just pile into a booth and drink cup after cup of coffee, talking for hours. Sometimes we would even order food. Then an indie coffee shop popped up in our small downtown. It had art on the walls, open mics, poetry readings. It was like "wtf?" For a bored teenager this was heaven. It gave us a place to congregate and be social with each other without pissing off the management.
In college I used to study at them all the time just so I could fulfill my obligations while simultaneously be doing something at least minimally social."Coffee culture" didn't slowly evolve, it just sort of... HIT about 1989.