It is incredible how you can walk in a Starbucks café with a beautiful welcome of aromatic coffee beans being concocted, creating a breathtaking smell that can make you have a taste of your favourite espresso drink before taking it.
The sound of boiling milk and blenders full of cappuccino echoes making the place a unique coffee spot.
Coffee drinkers share one common thing: their coffee has to meet precise specifications.
Starbucks comprises about ten different types of coffee beans, twelve blends of flavors and piles of unique toppings.
It is a hot afternoon 4.00pm, the sun is still scorching, and this place seems very conducive for relaxing.
I settled in one of the seats in a corner, ordered a cup of Frappuccino and slowly removed my mini-laptop from the laptop bag to record my observations regarding this café.
The observation analysis am making is critical in providing information on people’s behaviors in public spaces and a good understanding of the culture underlying specific social practice in general settings.
Summary of Observations
It is now 6.00pm I have been keenly observing and typing for the past two hours while slowly taking my sweet flavored Frappuccino letting the iced coffee cool my dry, thirsty throat.
First observation. Time: 4.00pm-5.00pm
Right from the entrance to the café, there stood two big captivating green succulent plants at the point of entry.
The Starbucks café wall is lovely and stylistic.
It is divided into two sections: the upper section is glass-walled, and the lower part is concrete covered in bright red paint.
One can easily visualize the on-going activities in the café.
My eyes were stuck on the two red flower bud-shaped ceiling lumps.
The place has no door, and so people can easily walk in and out at the comfort of their time.
There is a large transparent counter on the left side of the café with foodstuffs and drinks of various colors and shapes, very sumptuous from the appearance.
I noticed a list of menus on the right side of the counter.
There is very spacious section with two big leathered-sofa sets and four smaller coaches crouching at the corners.
The transparent glassed-tables with metallic stands are of different heights sizes and shapes including the circular and triangular ones.
My eyes also landed on seven bamboo baskets with a shelf filled with coffee-related products standing in the vicinity next to this area.
After scanning through the entire room, I noticed the different paint of the non-glass inside wall well painted in cream color.
The lights of different colors from the ceiling blended awesomely with heart-calming jazz music piped through the speakers in the background adding an appeal to this café.
Second observation. Time 5.00pm-6.00pm
The Starbucks café gets crowded as the sun sets.
Many people have placed their orders and were waiting to be served.
They looked high-spirited: some having small talks with their friends, partners or relative, talking over the phone, laughing while others are having a glimpse of the surrounding.
I quickly noticed this place received people from different ethnicities after sporting five people from African native, 20 black-Americans two Irish and more than 40 people of American native.
I also quickly noted that the majority of the people who bought coffee were in a hurry to leave and those staying less likely to purchase the drink.
People seated on sofas were involved in a certain task such as small discussions which seemed to be class assignments, pondering with thoughtful looks, hanging out with beloved ones and conversing intimately, or eating and drinking with an empty look.
At this place, everyone conversed in a loud tone, and no one was bothered by the music channeled from the speakers.
The meaning of technology was well depicted by the number of cell phones placed on the table as they waited to be served; some were working on their laptops or reading newspapers while others were listening to their special songs through the earphones and headphones.
Ten people in orange aprons with white or black collared shirts working precipitously to put up with the influx of customers.
Three Baristas at the cashier registry would call out the drinks to the three people.
The cashiers remained smiley and polite whenever interrogated by the customers.
It was amazing to notice how people at the sofa area left at the same time; half of them left at around 5:30 pm.
Around 25 people flocked the place in and the numbers continued to go up as the evening kicked in, the majority being college students with their loaded backpacks or carrying folders, who left the Starbucks in a hurry after being served.
I noticed that the place serves roughly 35 people in an hour with the majority being males compared to females.
Also, fewer people preferred to sit around for the coffee.
70% of the customers preferred hot Lattes to regular coffee.
Observational Analysis
Starbucks café provokes an evocative connection between socialized experience and space which in turn provides a configuration to interaction.
Space is an empty place with nothing unique regarding meaning, values, things, and gatherings (Christie, 2).
Places are made through human activities but concurrently influences people’s behavior or work in the very space.
Investigation of a public area which is also commercial such as Starbucks creates intuition into human activities that nurture place within an open space.
People’s conducts are influenced by social situations, but it is through the environment that we receive the cues upon which people respond to in alignment with their reading of the signals in the background.
This particular Starbucks café in question serves as a multi-purpose place where people can relax leisurely, read articles, work on their assignments, organize both formal and informal meeting, hang out with a longtime friend, partner or relative to catch up on a few.
In other words, it is being used for professional and no-work activities.
Starbucks is most applicable for this analysis since the exclusive environment with a blend of mobile technologies and stereotypic movements (eating, drinking, and reading) are acceptable, describe the current Starbucks as a workspace.
The Starbucks also points out that workplaces, not necessarily a discrete physical locality, making it a suitable site for the investigation of the intricacy of the intersection between work and space.
Also, technology has made it easier for people to work in boundaryless virtual workspaces and organizations.
The Starbucks café merges the common leisure space with that of persons performing certain works such as communication-based tools and time on the side of customers.
This analysis endows insight into how regular customers behave to manage their perceptions in the public domain.
There is social acceptance in this open space.
Patrons can occupy specific places for a given period upwards 3 hours and work while attending to a cell phone, making appointments, and tending to other personal matters: this implies that managing for personal issues in the space has been normalized.
It also illustrates that certain traits such as gazing and conducting own works in the public area affect the dynamic encounter for the customers as they cope with the tensions.
People in this place talk loudly, but the employees are very polite to their patrons.
Use of professional tools such as laptops acts as symbolic markers of one’s territory which indicative of their private space.
Conclusion
To sum up, with increased flexibility of work, many people have converted commercial places into workplaces.
It is also demonstrated in the observation study that it is difficult to differentiate persons performing professional activities from those on leisure.
This study equips one with knowledge regarding people's interaction amongst themselves and with the environment in a commercial public domain.
Works Cited
Christie, Erin. “A Bookstore-Café: An Exploration of the Blurring of the Public and Private Spheres.” Kaleidoscope: A Graduate Journal of Qualitative Communication Research, vol. 8, no. 1, 2009, p. 2.
