Small-Town Happy Hours
- Jason Brown
- Oct 9, 2024
- 8 min read
There is something about a happy hour in a small town that can't be replicated.
This was easy to see on The Camino.
There was never an official happy hour. But until about 6:00 pm, menus were limited to snacks, a few light plates, and whatever was on bottle or tap.
Often, the smaller the town, the later the kitchen opened.
Partially due to the Spanish culture of eating late, as adults gathered for a handful of cocktail mix, a glass of wine, and the hot gossip, the bar served to be the gathering place for the local community.
Not to escape their lives.
But to share in the place they all lived.
In a very real sense, the bar served to be a third place.
The Third Place
Since the term was established, the Third Place has been used by city planners, economists, and sociologists just as much as the average citizen.
Most are calling attention to their disappearance.
“Vanishing third places and what can be done” — Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), July 3, 2024
“If you want to belong, find a third place” — Vox, May 7, 2024
“Third Places: What Are They and Why Are They Important to American Culture?” — University of Chicago English Language Institute, November 1, 2023
“Third Places Are Disappearing, and It's Not a Good Sign” — Brooklyn College Vanguard, April 2, 2024
“The unfortunate, ongoing disappearance of 'third places'” — The Week, March 25, 2024
“The digital age has led to a death of 'third places'” — The Reflector (Mississippi State University), January 30, 2024
“Work, home, repeat: Modern America lacks the 'third place'” — Baylor Lariat, April 16, 2024
I became interested in the concept of third places after seeing a post on Instagram.
With the closing of Cartoon Network's website, and the loss of kid friendly spaces similar to Club Penguin, even the digital third places are closing.
What is a Third Place
The third place is a social space people go to create social connections and build community. The relationships that make up these spaces are separate from those of home and work.
They're voluntary.
Defined by Ray Oldenburg in “The Great Good Place” (1989), the third place is identifiable based on 8 characteristics.
So, third places are easy to access, where anyone can come and go as they please regardless of their social status.
Because connection and community are the goal, conversation is the main focus.
Those who frequent the space create a unique environment that is intellectually stimulating and relaxing. Yet, it is still incredibly inviting to new people.
Clearly separate from the work (second place), the Third Place mimics the feel of a home (first place).
But, unlike the home, you are not alone in this space.
Where are Third Places Going?
Many have noted Starbucks shift from its third place roots.
For years, we thought I need to study, meet, or do work, I am heading to Starbucks.
A co-worker, needing a space to edit a video project, mentioned being shocked walking into Starbucks. The only seating to be found was at the bar: no tables, no chairs, just a bar.
With a shift of focus towards their rewards and digital ordering system, the inside of Starbucks has been stripped of the original openness and warmth that was once inviting and cultivating of a third place.
Yet, this shift makes sense.
Starbucks prioritizes efficiency of the ambient experience (Ruff 2002).
Four years ago, their focus on “convenience-led formats” saw the rise of their drive-thru ordering and curbside pick-up (Ruff 2002).
However, this shift is not just for Starbucks is not alone.
It Should Be Downright Illegal
Living in Europe for just shy of a year, I know the “it” factor that cause Americans to either love or hate Europe.
It is not just that their cities are built to sustain third places: plazas, parlors, and bars all within walking distance.
What makes them great, also makes them illegal in the United States.
This can be understood in two ways:
In Europe, walking for its own sake is common and easily supported by the city infrastructure. Many people walk with no real destination and stop at random with no plan in mind. They wander.
In Europe, lingering with no real purpose except to exist is also common. Teens gather, filling the streets, making it hard to get where you need. Adults stand outside of bars drink in hand, blowing cigarette smoke in your face.
Both of these groups, by definition, loiter.
America V. Europe
Think about it.
There is a philosophical difference between America and Europe.
One promotes hard work, grit, and determination for the sake of progress.
One promotes leisure, existence for its own sake, and work out of necessity.
I am not here to make claims on which is correct.
Simply to make a point.
Europe is an escape from the work centric, go to school to get a job, work your job until you die lifestyle that underpins American culture.
Take A Walk
Walking The Camino, never did I see a “No Loitering” sign. Nor was I pressured to leave a restaurant, bar, or café.
No matter the time of day, number of people in the space, or how long I had been there, the experience was less about the service and more about the being in the space.
The spirit of The Camino is an aimless, nomadic-esque wandering that is supported by incessant loitering.
Though you walk toward Santiago, most of the day is spent wandering small towns.
You're a pilgrim.
You don't have much money.
You only have what you can carry 15 miles a day.
You walk around each new town, going in and out of shops, sitting at bars and cafés for hours on end to bide time until you can walk again.
You have no home. You have no place of work.
All this is left is some third place where you can make connections and find some sense of home.
Do You Justify Your Existence?
Starbucks' shift and Cartoon Network's closure highlight a question at the core of our lives.
Third places promote a step away from productivity and consumption.
Perhaps this is why “the United States tends to have more extensive and strictly enforced loitering laws compared to the generally more limited and localized approaches found in Europe” (Perplexity AI 024).
In the conversations I have had with friends about third places, the first thought has been to hold up churches or fitness clubs as an apt third place.
These do carry the marks of the standard definition.
But, something key is missing.
The Catholic Church still has a little way to go with building its community outside the mass setting. There is still an air of pretension and, outright, a church is not a playful place.
It can be an incredibly challenging space to enter for the first time. Trying to break into the defined social milieu is hard for Catholic and non-Catholics alike.
Fitness clubs may move closer to a true third place.
Yet, the goal of a fitness club is to work out, not talk. Add the complexities of type of club, price for membership, location, and amenities, pretension shoots through the roof.
No social leveling is seen.
Companies like Lifetime have grown to incorporate everything you could want.
Lifetime Work offers various memberships for office space. Ranging from the open lounge
of a bygone Starbucks to a private office, you can work and play in one place.
But, if you were to go to either of these places without a true purpose.
If you wanted to linger.
To just be.
Maybe you could get away with being “in prayer” at Church. Yet, you would not be allowed into Lifetime without a membership.
For either, there must be a justification for your presence.
You must have a reason for being there.
The disappearance of third places in the United States highlights an ingrained need to justify our existence.
Eureka
I never understood why people went to happy hours or lived in small towns.
Both seemed like a waste of time.
Today's supply chains killed the blacksmith, farmer, and seamstress in favor of the warehouse overseas.
Instead, jobs are found in the big cities.
In the same way, I could not understand the rush to a bar or restaurant during off-peak hours.
Happy hours are nothing more than a ploy to boost profit. To sit, drink, and snack for reduced prices when revenue was otherwise lost.
Yet, closing out the last weekend of summer, I left Breckenridge with an idea why people do both.
Not So Main Street
Have you ever noticed how in most major cities, Main Street is ironically named?
Houston, Kansas City, Omaha, Milwaukee, Madrid, I have lived in cities of different shapes and sizes, yet not one has aptly kept their main street, main.
With the massive cityscapes most of us live, the idea that one street could be the “main street” is relatively comical.
It is no surprise that main streets are nothing more than an ode to a bygone era.
Unless you live in a small town.
The small town whose commerce is limited, population is small, and community is central to its existence, these spaces seem to have kept their third places intact.
I have been to Breckenridge three years in a row: main street is the same, the buses are the same, the shops are the same.
Each year, my friends and I walk Main Street up, down, back and forth. We walk into the same stores rarely with the intention to buy things. We are teachers remind you.
We sit at coffee shops.
We catch up on our lives as we make fun of one another.
We take pictures.
We sit outside stores on the curb.
We forest bathe.
We sit on benches.
Most recently, we go to happy hours with parents. Yeah, I know.
In all these experiences, we loiter.
We walk around with no real intent like the teens of Spain who congregate and fill the street at 8:00 pm.
We sit at coffee shops like the old Spanish men who buy one coffee, exchange a few words, smoke their cigarette, and stare off into the distance and at any foreigner who walks by.
We enjoy random conversation over shrimp, beef, and tuna with various drinks, like the Spaniards eating tapas and drinking a beer.
There is no real point to our excursions beyond simply being.
It's beautiful.
We left our first of two happy hours that weekend, and I told everyone, I get why people like happy hours.
It is not the food, and you do not have to drink.
There is something to spaces that exist simply for our existence.
There is something to spaces that we do not have to justify our existence in.
Yes, restaurants and bars have a goal. They are a business. Yet, during happy hour, the focus shifts, and they momentarily become a third place.
For a few hours, people can come for as little as five minutes or stay beyond for dinner service.
For a few hours, the local mailman sits next to the stockbroker, engaged in conversations they might not otherwise have.
Those who frequent the space have made it well known and engage in the one-off joke or two with first timers.
Sure, you can find this in Houston and Boston and even Madrid, yet there is something about the small town that truly emphasizes this space becoming a home away from home and the ease of access.
It is challenging to create meaningful relationships in big cities.
Who are you to the other 7 million people?
It is difficult to go to walk to your local bar when the only way to navigate our cities is by car.
Would drunk driving go down if cities were more walkable?
To be complete a third place, there has to be the essence and ability to loiter.
But that's illegal.
Most loitering laws are directed at sex offenders, gang activities, prostitution, drug dealing, and panhandling.
However, every one of those people is out and about for a reason.
They are justifying their existence.
For the rest of us, who don't want to sit alone at home or spend any more time at work.
What is there?
PerplexityAI. 2024. Perplexity Pro (September 30) [Compare Lotiering Laws in the United States to That of Europe]. Perplexity.AI
Ruff, C. (2022, September 19). As Starbucks changes its growth strategy, the 'third space' café model fades from view. Modern Retail. https://www.modernretail.co/operations/as-starbucks-changes-its-growth-strategy-the-third-space-cafe-model-fades-from-view/
