A New Community Space: The Culture of the Urban Bike Cafe

摘要

Sociologist Ray Oldenburg first defined third places as spaces neither at home nor at work where people can join others to relax and socialize. These community-centric spaces have long included cafes and bars, but traditional examples of Oldenburg's third place have yielded a new, unique hybrid: the bicycle cafe. Part bike shop and part coffee shop, bike cafes are increasingly appearing in large cities in the United States and overseas, and exemplify a successful marrying of two traditionally unrelated businesses. By focusing research in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a city at the forefront of bike cafe development, this paper will examine the social significance of bike cafes and propose that their development was a logical outcome of burgeoning urban bike and coffee cultures. The authors also argue that this innovative business hybrid offers a new model for the third place in many urban settings.