If you want to hang out or use the restroom at Starbucks, you’re going to have to buy something.

Starbucks on Monday said it was reversing a policy that invited everyone into its stores. A new code of conduct – which will be posted in all company-owned North American stores – also bans discrimination or harassment, consumption of outside alcohol, smoking, vaping, drug use and panhandling.

Starbucks spokesperson Jaci Anderson said the new rules are designed to help prioritize paying customers. Anderson said most other retailers already have similar rules.

    • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      2 days ago

      [flat] No, wait, come back.

      Starbucks seems intent on showing itself the door. Hopefully when they’re done, better, smaller coffee shops with no shareholder obligations will take their place

    • Aaron@lemmy.nz
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      2 days ago

      The Starbucks 3rd space idea has been dead since 2015-2018. It was a conscious choice.

  • Etterra@discuss.online
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    30
    ·
    3 days ago

    Past: Person goes to Starbucks to hang out, ends up ordering coffee.

    Present: Person isn’t allowed to hang out in Starbucks, goes somewhere else.

    Future: Starbucks backpedals in desperate attempt to win back customers.

  • ddash@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    134
    ·
    3 days ago

    Quick reminder that your local library probably does not follow those rules. Go hang out at your local library instead! Depending on location/country they might have a café too.

  • bitwolf@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    36
    ·
    3 days ago

    The best thing I’ve seen in a coffee shop was a “Please no laptops” sign.

    Its ridiculous how everyone just goes and works in coffee shops all day.

    I understand buying a coffee, and working while you enjoy it. But once you’re done, and your work is saved gtfo.

    We need more third spaces.

    • Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      2 days ago

      People are also desperately lonely and isolated. They hang out in coffee shops just to have other living humans around them- even if they’re not actively interacting.

      We are all alone, together.

    • LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      3 days ago

      I troubleshoot a VPN connection for a man who does his work from a Dunkin at least once a week. He doesn’t even drink coffee or eat donuts. He just hangs out there and works until his VPN breaks.

    • COASTER1921@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      3 days ago

      Starbucks coffee isn’t even good anyway. But without more coworking spaces or some other alternative people like me will occasionally be forced to work from one for one reason or another. In the towns around military bases especially you frequently see spouses of those who work on base in Starbucks doing their remote work since it’s the only possible place they can work from if they were staying in a hotel the night before.

    • Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      38
      ·
      3 days ago

      Yeah. But now they don’t have any advantages over other cafés. Except the fact that their coffees basically double as a rich snack I guess.

      • Dupree878@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        2 days ago

        A lot of places don’t just have cafés. Starbucks is about the only place in town with WiFi and a place to hang out

      • Fisherman75@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        3 days ago

        It’s the consumption of an idea. There’s very little in the way of substance at Starbucks. I achieved more than any Starbucks order by grinding my folgers classic roast just now while using an unbleached compostable coffee filter and having cleaned the coffee maker with all natural biodegradeable dish soap. Can’t afford good coffee grounds right now, but recently I had ‘Punk Goes The Bunny’, Billie Joe Armstrong’s (from Green Day) coffee brand.

        But here I am wondering if I’m just consuming a bunch of ideas myself. Consuming the idea of Punk Rock for instance, or eco-friendliness, or health. But then I catch myself and say “Those are tangible benefits.” Anything more likely to make me listen to The Clash is a positive, anything that’s not gonna put bleach in my body, anything that’s gonna be clean for making coffee but without such a residue of dangerous chemicals as is typical with cleaners, and anything to add to my compost.

  • foggy@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    57
    ·
    3 days ago

    Targeting the growing homeless population. Don’t let it confuse you for anything else.

    • BothsidesistFraud@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      3 days ago

      Why would it possibly be on Starbucks to provide places for homeless people to hang out for hours. This should be a public function.

        • BothsidesistFraud@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          edit-2
          3 days ago

          I know you’re just circlejerking here so discussion is probably pointless, but there are many ways to serve the community and providing a quiet, nicely ambient place (aspirational goals, only met sometimes in reality) to sit or work for a few hours, for the price of a $3 coffee is one. I live in New York and for just over the price of a subway ride I can get wifi, a desk to work, outlets and a decently comfortable chair, and a restroom, and I can hang out there a while.

          Serving the homeless in public places is notoriously difficult to get right, as most state and local governments experience demonstrates. Why we’d expect a cafe company to do a good job as well as meet its other goals is confusing.

          • BradleyUffner@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            3 days ago

            If seating isn’t at capacity, it doesn’t cost them anything additional to let someone sit down a bit to warm up.

            • BothsidesistFraud@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              14
              ·
              edit-2
              3 days ago

              That’s true only if homeless people make zero noise, do not act or behave eccentrically, do not bother other customers, do not have offensive odors, immediately cede their seat to a customer who arrives, somehow don’t make through their presence prospective customers believe the shop is too crowded, etc. Do you think even actual customers who are not mentally disturbed or addicted can fulfill this bar you’ve set by saying “costs nothing”?

              Warming is a canard, every street homeless person can get warm at a church or shelter. In NYC you can 311 a city department and they’ll go offer the person a ride to a shelter anywhere in the city in a van. Their average time is <1 hour. They can walk into any library in the city.

              I encounter homeless every day and resent dumb online joke, these are individuals who have serious problems and, as stated, there is a reason even public services find it hard to serve these populations.

              There’s also a reason neither you nor I regularly invite street homeless into our homes.

              If you don’t like megacorp there are 1000 better ways you can argue it than saying “they should let homeless in to hang out”. Choosing the argument that you have chosen, just sounds ridiculous.

              • Dupree878@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                2 days ago

                I agree with you about the first part but not the second. Not everyone lives in a large city that has warming stations. In my town the few are run by churches you have to participate in to stay and they’re so spread out across the city there’s no way to get to them. Starbucks is right downtown

    • dutchkimble@lemy.lol
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      3 days ago

      So before this rule homeless people in the US could sit in a starbucks all day everyday without ordering anything?

  • frunch@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    43
    ·
    3 days ago

    “Hey, look at us–we’re the new public hangout, everyone’s invited”

    Expands into an empire dotting the entire country

    “Sorry poors–paying customers only, please.”

    Embrace, extend, extinguish all over again 🎉

    • BmeBenji@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      3 days ago

      If I remember correctly, this policy was introduced after they got flack because some employee called the cops on a black person who was just hanging out inside the store.

      Turns out money is more important to them than the appearance of inclusion surprised pikachu face

  • kirbowo808@kbin.melroy.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    22
    ·
    3 days ago

    Well this gives me a good excuse to never go to Starbucks ever again (even though people shouldn’t be going to Starbucks anyway)

  • Chessmasterrex@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    3 days ago

    Meh, the last time I’ve been in one was 2011. Too expensive for what it is, and plenty of other options in my city.

    • nomy@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      3 days ago

      Yeah starbucks is a coffee shop for soccer moms and affluent suburbanites. There are a dozen better coffee shops that serve actual coffee for less AND you don’t have to deal with Starbucks entitled customer base.