Textual Analysis Of A Coffee Shop

I went to The Coffee Loft on a Sunday afternoon (from 1:30-2:30), opting to stay in the downstairs section of the café so that I could watch conversations between the barista and patrons and have a better view as to who walked in; the Loft seems like a calm place with small yet interesting passing conversations to listen to. The question I had in mind was as to whether or not more student-age or older patrons came into the café for any purpose – coffee and lunch, to study, etc.

The general appearance of the patrons of the coffee loft were pretty homogenous – everyone tended to match the general indie aesthetic of café. There was at least two New College kids I recognized walking into the café—one of which was one of my RAs, actually. A lot

of the verbal interactions were just your run-of-the-mill coffee conversations between the customers and the barista. There were two baristas when I first came in, but one had her shift end. She and the other barista had short conversations about after-work plans, but I didn’t get to hear much of their conversation because of the shift change. In terms of coffee-talk between the remaining barista and his customers, a lot of people were buying paninis (probably because this was just after noon) and iced coffees. A lot of the conversation just stopped after that, but two or three people would ask him about how the flow of customers was – to which he always responded, “so slow”. I felt bad for not talking to him more, he seemed pretty bored. He ended up with some extra green tea and a mistake sandwich with the wrong topping and ended up giving them to anyone who would take them for free, which served pretty well to me to show how the general vibe of the café was, considering that my family worked in restaurants all my life and I’ve seen that some places give extra food to employees or just throw it out – I don’t usually see that the product is given to customers for free. It was pretty nice. The shop has a wall dedicated to a community project in which people can donate and are given a bag to draw on with a Sharpie, and in what was probably the slowest part of the day, the barista gave me a bag and told me nobody had really been buying them so the wall felt really blank and that he’d be okay with me just drawing something to throw on the wall for some variation (if you go and see the giraffe, you’ll be looking at my glorious attempt at art). Throughout my whole time in the café, a coffeehouse indie playlist seemed to be the soundtrack of choice. Around 2 pm an advertisement played that revealed that the playlist was hosted on Spotify and was being played from a phone, which was amusing, at least to me. It all really just set the mood of the café: calm, friendly, laid-back.
There was a good 20 minute stretch of time that I got to listen in on a conversation between the barista and a customer who came in that was probably a regular—he seemed like he was in his mid- to late-20s and was dressed in work attire (casual retail wear with a vest with the store name on it presumably. I didn’t get a good look at exactly where he was working, as he sat directly next to me at the bar and it would be a little compromising to my people watching experience if I were to lean back to catch the business name…) that the barista actually commented on by asking when his shift was ending, asking how business was for him. They talked a lot about future plans for what the regular wanted to do with his own life – save from his current job, move up to north, start a life there. The barista expressed similar interests, wanting to finish his undergrad education and move up to Seattle with his girlfriend to do photography. They moved from that discussion to one based off a small flyer on the counter closer to the register promoting fusion dance – the regular asked about live bands performing at the Coffee Loft, and the barista on duty responded that there used to be such shows often, but in recent years there haven’t been a big group of bands open to performing there (I presume this is so due to space demands and because in recent years, the Nothing Arts venue opened up).
In regards to the initial question I posed, the results were completely conclusive to the fact that, at least on an average Sunday, the primary demographic that comes into the Coffee Loft is college-aged students (their status as students being confirmed by the fact that the barista asks if the customer is a student, as students get a discount).

Fifteen students came into the café, whereas only one individual identifying as anything other than a student came in. I considered recording gender for analysis as well, but after some further thought, I’ve decided that any data I collected on that could be considered incorrect due to gender non-conformance being more common in this area than in most places – at least one person entered the café that I actually know, and they are a non-conforming individual. Regardless of their demographic, people came in with usually one of two purposes: to get their coffee/food and leave, or to go upstairs to enjoy their food and do work individually. Only two groups broke this trend, one stayed downstairs to study, and the other went upstairs for what seemed to be a small date – I had only gone upstairs for a moment on consideration that maybe I should put in some time up there, but decided that it was a bad idea because it already kind of seemed like I was following these people that were probably on a date. I’m not particularly

inconspicuous.
As a whole, the observation seemed to go pretty successfully.

I was capable of gathering a good amount of information about the café just from hanging around long enough, but I do admit that I did feel kind of creepy for not interacting much. The whole experience just makes participant observation seem more plausible for research – my limited interaction with the barista almost made me feel bad for serving as little more than a wallflower. If I ever return for another strange observation-based reason, or even if I get particularly bored, I’ll probably return to the Loft to talk to the barista. I’d probably feel comfortable enough engaging in a bigger conversation with him and regulars if anyone is inclined. That would probably make my presence more meshed and lead to more comfort for everyone involved. From a social angle, it was probably much less successful – nobody likes an eavesdropper, and judging my probable conspicuousness, I probably came off as exactly that. As prior mentioned – this really just shows more of the upsides to actually participating in observation (beyond that of drawing a giraffe). I may have gotten a suiting amount of information from just sitting and absorbing my surroundings, but I’m sure now that interactions would’ve given me a much more enriching

experience.