Starbucks At The Barnes And Powers Location

A coffee shop is a perfect place to study social construction in our society. For one, a plethora of different people go in and out of such shops. And they do so for a variety of reasons. Because of this, coffee shops truly encapsulate America. Our group aimed to capture the workings of society using the four classic anthropological methods. Sikander Chohan, who authored the biological anthropology section, focused on how physical factors of human beings affected the Tim Hortons he studied. Our linguist specialist, Chris Josebalan, focused on how nonverbal communication, vocal vocabulary, and gender speech contrasts were factors in the everyday workings of the Coffee Beanery Café he studied. Our two cultural specialists, Noah Smith and Ashley Hamblin, studied people's reasonings, gender construction, and the effect of groups. Owen Ekblad, our archaeology specialist, studied at two locations of the local coffee shop chain called Sweetwaters. The two locations he visited, in Ann Arbor and Canton, were representative of a wider variety of human influence and behavior. All in all, our group aimed to make observations that would give us an insight into social construction in coffee shops.

My observations of human behavior were made at Starbucks on Grand avenue, New York near Elmhurst. I chose this location due to the high customer traffic that it sees. Since it is a popular coffee shop, the customer base cuts across different multicultural sector of the population. There is a lot of variety in the backgrounds and personalities of the people visiting the shop. This quality makes any patterns that are recognized more representative of the general public.

For this assignment, I decided to observe people’s interaction in Starbucks at level one of the Indiana Memorial Union (IMU), Indiana University. Starbucks is one of America’s coffee companies and coffee shop chains. Starbucks sells handcrafted coffee, tea, snacks and many more beverages. I decided to go to do my observation at Starbucks instead of other coffee shops because in my opinion, Starbucks is one of the famous coffee shops among Americans—so more people will come there to buy coffee, to hang out with their friends or even just to warm themselves up from the cold weather. Because of that, I went to observe students and other people who are in Starbucks at IMU. At this Starbucks, there is a stage at the back of the coffee shop for people to make performance and in between of the stage and the counter, there are lots of tables and chairs for customers to sit down.

I set out to find a place to begin my observations, not knowing what to fully expect, what I may find. So I decided to look around at what is close to my home that isn’t a place I frequent or have even visited at all. Then it came to me, the Starbucks that is only about a mile away is a perfect place for me to observe subjects that I would consider different from myself, seeing as how I consider such obscene prices for coffee ridiculous. Starbucks is a very popular chain of coffee vendors that describe their product as more about quality than what Americans are used to in typical coffee joints.

I decided to use Starbucks as the site for my naturalistic observation assignment. Starbucks is an American coffee house chain that is well known for its relaxing atmosphere and delicious coffee drinks. Today is Labor day and because it is a holiday, I expect to see several people commuting back home from their vacations. As I entered the Starbucks in Palm Springs, just as I expected, it was full of people getting their coffees for the long drive ahead of them. The people are mostly young men and women in tank tops and shorts due to the hot weather. Since it is 11:30 in the morning, everyone appears to be in a rush to get on the road. As I sat longer, a couple sitting in the corner caught my attention. They seem to be in no rush and look like

Starbucks with its inspired high selling coffee bean has been very popular in the American Culture over the years. I decided to observe Starbucks due to its popularity all over campus, although it has not been a fan of mine. I found it very pleasant and relaxing during my time there. I noticed more intimate interactions between workers when there were little or no customers and fewer interactions between workers when the place was crowded.

Patrons like myself stood in line scanning the café for empty tables and available seats. The arrangement of the tables in this area allowed for more seating flexibility and appeared to lower social boundaries between customers while encouraging interaction between members of cliques and individual patrons. Armed with my laptop and cappuccino, my observations occurred from an empty table in the center of the café.

When a regular customer comes in we know them by name and their coffee is ready and waiting for them. It creates a positive experience for the guest and encourages them to come back again tomorrow. Getting to know

On Monday, October 17 from one p.m. until two p.m. I observed people’s behavior in Starbucks on Clemson University campus. The majority of the population consisted of students most likely ranging from eighteen years old to twenty-four years old. This time of day seemed to be particularly busy, and from where I was sitting I observed human behavior as they interacted within the space. The room itself had an ordering area, an area to gather while waiting for your drink, and then multiple seating arrangements, such as booths, high tables, large tables, and small tables. Even with all the furniture the space had little obstructions, making it easy to oversee activity.

As a distractible person, I find myself doing my work in the small cubbyholes of Starbucks stores. Amongst, the unlimited supply of caffeinated drinks, and the white-noise generated by the mélange of indistinguishable conversation, sounds of espresso machines, and crappy jazz, I find it easier to focus in a Starbucks lobby. When you spend inordinate amounts of time in Starbucks you pickup on the unique social dynamics of a place which attracts salesmen, snobs, and students alike.

One method that proved particularly useful but surprising to this author, was reproducing a replica of the internal layout of the room, and then adding notes as needed (see appendix). With this, it was easy to systematically describe objects in the shop and the interactions among the customers. Using visual cues, the basis of this approach is recognized as a useful, albeit a more complex form of data gathering (Chen, Ebert, Hagen, Laramee, Van Liere, Ma, ... & Silver, 2009). For the author, it preserved the original character of the coffee and smoothies shop during the process of writing this paper, keeping the details authentic and unique to the business

Starbucks customers are diverse, well educated, young business people looking for a quick and easy way to grab coffee on their way to work. Starbucks values a strong relationship with their customers so they are

Walking into the shop on a typical day, the second someone opens the door, the smell of roasting coffee and hot chocolate invades the nose. A crowd of exhausted and sullen-faced, office and retail workers start off the day, looking for something to help them stay awake to survive the work day. Then comes in the students, who at that point, are probably late for class, but do not care anymore. Even in the winter the store becomes warm from the large amount of people waiting in line for their turn to get fresh-brewed coffee or tea from one of the baristas, either Jess or Steve. Possibly along with one of the many pastries offered,

The atmosphere is busy and rushed yet is oddly soothing. A smooth jazz song plays over the speaker above. The smell of fresh brewed coffee and espresso beans fills the air. Baristas call out names as orders are completed, Britany, Taylor, Drew, Melissa. The baristas are focused, not wavering from their tasks as they fill orders; some complicated and some just a simple iced coffee. The wait time is anywhere from fifteen to forty-five minutes. Many people stand with inpatients; tapping their feet and faces expressing discontent.

The first thing I noticed after walking into Starbucks was the color scheme. All the colors in the store were warm and neutral. There were several different shades of brown to match the coffee. The lighting in the store was dim which created a cozy atmosphere. Even most of the windows has some kind of shading to reduce the natural light coming into the store.