Whether it’s a unique neighborhood darling or a Starbucks that looks like a thousand others, coffee shops play a big role in our culture. It’s partly because of our unstopping need to feel and be productive. (I’m thinking of those midtown Manhattan coffee places that have a rapid energy and only two chairs.) But it’s also because coffee shops serve an important function for meeting up with pals or schlepping our laptops away from home to find some inspiration.

As a place to get work done, coffee shops are a nice fit for students, information workers, writers, coders, and pixel pushers alike. These spaces are often designed with small tables for solo work, or dyads and triads. The barista activity and jazzy music (or alt rock, or whatever) can provide the right amount of energy to push us along. We feel the freedom to linger, with a room full of people who are alone together.

To really break it down, I think there are many reasons coffee shops work so well as places we enjoy for finding productivity, inspiration, and connection. Here are some big ones.

caffeine

Duh, we like to energize our souls. Whereas alcohol dulls our edges, coffee is supposed to make us sharper and dialed into what needs doing.

background noise

Ambient noise is good for a lot of people’s concentration. There’s a reason there are lots of YouTube videos and playlists emulating the sounds and ambience of a coffee shop. Some amount of low-level buzzing and chatter can help us focus by distracting our extraneous thoughts. The key is not too much noise, and not too little, and continuous rather than abrupt starts and stops.

environment

The best coffee shops are designed to feel comfortable, maybe even with a fireplace and bookshelves if you’re lucky. Bright natural light or warm artificial light feel cozy especially when it’s cold outside. A well-designed coffee shop also helps people feel welcome by ensuring the experience is easy, even for first-time visitors — like by designing an obvious “flow” from the front door to the register to the pick-up area, and making the menu easy to scan and read.

change of scenery

Switching up our surroundings can spark new ideas or solutions. Even the process of walking or driving somewhere to get a latte can give our tired brains a break and invite fresh thoughts. I once drove to a coffee shop an hour away and while enroute, I got an idea for a business offering. Once I was sitting with my tea and croissant, I jotted down notes and formed a plan and I felt like a damn genius.

third place

Coffee shops are a perfect example of a third place, which isn’t our home or workplace, but a different location that is free (or inexpensive) and open to the public. People feel okay to gather or linger in a cafe or coffee shop, and buying a bev is financially accessible to most. (Other examples of third places are parks, libraries, bars, and rec centers.)

cultural significance

Coffee shops call to mind creativity, invention, and maybe the friends on Friends. When in a new city, we might stop in a local cafe or cappuccino spot to settle into a temporary version of ourselves in a different place (and to order an extra fun pastry, of course, as a cultural exercise).

mood boosts

When I spent a semester studying for PhD qualifying exams (aka the hellish day-long essay-fest my committee wrote me), I routinely went to Starbucks on Saturday mornings to get a cinnamon bun to enjoy while summarizing academic journal articles. (This was a decade ago, so I also listened to the first Alt-J album on repeat in my headphones.) Some of the above-mentioned factors went into this ritual, but to be honest? It was mostly a mood boost for me to get a tasty treat and motivate myself to keep going. When the vibes are right, a coffee shop feels less like work and more like a spa for my brain.

miscellany

• Things look a little different here. I took a brief Interrobang pause over the holidays and migrated everything from Substack to Beehiiv. Unfortunately, Substack has handled hate speech very poorly and it’s only gotten worse, but I’m very happy with Beehiiv so far. (I might keep fixing stuff so sorry for anything that feels weird or missing.)

• To make this summer’s Olympics unique and stylish, Paris intends to host the Opening Ceremonies on barges on the Seine, showing off the city itself. They want some of the swimming events to take place in the river too. (I’ve written before about the Seine’s importance as an urban blue space.) This choice seems to potentially have widespread environmental, safety, and security implications, though it will indeed be unique!

• In one of endless examples of greedy service design, I liked this article in Slate about how CLEAR’s paid premium airport security line creates even more miserable experiences for everyone else. I’ve worked with enough companies to know that creating a worse baseline experience (hello, ads on every streaming service) is often a tool to generate profit, which is so depressing I cannot even.

• This $85 silicon broom from Dotti is designed to look nice and also apparently solve all our problems — with a washable head, a more comfortable weight balance, and a dustpan designed for feet instead of hands. It’s true though, brooms typically leave that line of dirt, and the dustpan-foot-shuffle is awkward. And maybe these last longer without those bent bristles. So, elegant and ergonomic design is fascinating but… again, $85.