Starbucks isn’t just a brand—it’s a cultural fixture, long synonymous with the modern coffeehouse experience. But as the brand navigates declining performance and shifting consumer expectations, it’s returning to its roots in a surprising way: by doubling down on the elusive “coffeehouse vibe.”
With new leadership signaling a renewed focus on ambiance and experience, this move taps into a broader cultural desire. Consumers increasingly seek places that provide more than just caffeine—aesthetic, atmosphere, and a sense of community now matter deeply. With insights uncovered from an in-depth trend analysis of the brand and topic, we explore whether Starbucks' pivot toward “vibes” is backed by what coffee drinkers are actually saying—and whether this strategy can truly perk up the brand’s fortunes.
Starbucks has seen rocky earnings lately. Year-over-year net income was down 23.78% in the fourth quarter of 2024, the most recent data point in a series that persisted through each quarter of the year. Same-store sales followed this same quarterly trend, seeing a declining of 7% in Q4. The resulting identity crisis for the company has taken the form of significant corporate restructurings – first was a change in leadership at the top, with new CEO Brian Nicool taking the helm in September, and not long after came a recent announcement of lay-offs. This trimming of over 1,000 corporate workers amounts to the largest percentage workforce cut in the company’s history.
Nicool has made clear he’s looking to address Starbucks’ waning performance by making significant changes to the company’s in-store experience as well. In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, he laid out a range of plans which included cutting down on the average wait-time for drinks (to under four minutes), bringing greater customer control to the mobile-ordering experience, and – notably – fostering a “great coffeehouse vibe.”
He states in the interview this “coffeehouse vibe” will arise from “great seats with great experiences that people are going to [make people] want to hang out and kind of experience life with other people.” Our analysis suggests that while this approach has merit, understanding how consumers actually value 'vibes'—compared to other factors—will be key to determining its strategic weight.
While Starbucks was founded in 1971 as a humble coffee wholesaler in Seattle, former CEO Howard Schultz taking the reins in the mid-1980s marked a monumental directional shift for the company. This shift followed a trip to Italy, where Schultz was taken by the unique experience of sitting – or standing – with an espresso at Italian cafes. Inspired by Italy, he strove, according to Starbucks themselves, to “bring the warmth and artistry of its coffee culture” to America. The business adopted a coffeehouse model, laid out and decorated like those coffee bars Schultz visited in Italy, and became focused on selling espresso and espresso-based drinks in that same moda italiana.
This direction was appealing to American audiences and sparked a rapid expansion for Starbucks through the 1990s and early 2000s, becoming a fixture of urban life – first in the Pacific Northwest, then across the US, and then globally. As of the start of this year, there were over 40,000 locations across the globe*.
*A note of irony here: despite being the chief inspiration for the brand’s insurgent identity, Italy has not much taken to this Americanization of its coffee culture; the country is home to a mere 39 Starbucks locations.
Creating a “coffeehouse vibe” is hardly a new concept for Starbucks—in fact, it was central to the brand’s identity during its most transformative years. That same experiential focus helped turn Starbucks into the global icon it is today. But in 2025, do consumers still care about ambiance? And if they do, is prioritizing “vibes” the right strategic move—especially alongside parallel efforts to improve speed and efficiency, which may be at odds with a linger-worthy experience? To gut-check Nicool’s vibes-driven vision, we turned to the data—analyzing consumer conversations to understand what truly matters to today’s coffee drinkers.
We analyzed relevant conversations that pertain to the overarching topic of coffee shops across social platforms. From there, we broke out key attributes that consumers would consider when choosing a coffee shop to patronize. These attributes consist of Convenience (mentions of wait time, mobile ordering, on-the-go), Price, Service (mentions of the staff, barista interactions, experience with workers), Quality (mentions of the quality or taste of the beverages themselves), and finally Vibes (including mentions of the atmosphere, ambience, etc).
Discussion of “vibes” did receive a large volume of posts in consumers’ discussion around coffee shops in the last year. Price was the most discussed of these attributes, but discussion of Vibes is at relative parity even with discussion of the quality of the tangible product itself – the beverages. Vibes are a frequent topic in consumer conversations and clearly sit top-of-mind when it comes to choosing a coffee spot.
Coffee Shop Post Volume
Furthermore, we can use natural language processing to look deeper into the consumer sentiment of these posts to examine the extent to which the attributes each inspire consumers to express positivity when discussing.
Coffee Shop Net Sentiment
The conversation containing mentions of the Vibes attribute sees a markedly greater expression of positive sentiment compared to any of the other attributes. While many are discussing price when it comes to coffee shops, posts in that conversation are the most likely to be negative (with the lowest Net Sentiment Score of the attributes). Vibes, in contrast, consistently spark positive sentiment in consumer posts—suggesting it's not just a talking point, but a real driver of brand favorability. This lends support to Nicool’s belief that enhancing the Starbucks vibe could meaningfully boost how consumers feel about the brand.
To validate this opportunity for the Starbucks brand further, we overlayed these same attributes on the discussion revolving around the Starbucks brand specifically over the same timeframe.
Starbucks Post Volume
The breakdown by attribute reveals a clear pattern: as with coffee shops overall, Price and Quality dominate discussions about Starbucks. But beyond those, there’s a sharp decline in conversation volume—especially around Vibes, which appear less central to how consumers are currently evaluating the brand.
We then looked again at net brand sentiment by theme, this time around Starbucks itself.
Starbucks Net Sentiment
Starbucks has significant ground to cover when it comes to consumer perceptions of 'vibes.' The brand’s Net Sentiment Score for this attribute sits at 32—far below the 88 score for coffee shops overall. Not only is there less conversation about Starbucks' atmosphere, but what does exist is notably less positive. That said, the sentiment data also highlights where the real urgency lies: improving speed, mobile ordering, and service quality. These are the areas—especially Convenience and Service—where sentiment is actively negative, suggesting they should be top priorities for the brand’s turnaround strategy.
We can also dive deeper and evaluate how this sentiment might vary demographically.
Coffee Shop Net Sentiment by Gender
Starbucks Net Sentiment by Gender
While sentiment expressed toward each theme is generally similar by gender regarding the topic of Coffee Shops overall, we see much greater gender variation in the Starbucks-specific analysis. Men express notably less positivity toward the “vibes” at Starbucks than women.
Women, however, are driving the strongly negative net sentiment around both Convenience and Service, with women’s perceptions of the service experience being especially negative. This could illustrate not just what improvements Starbucks should prioritize for the brand experience, but for whom it should prioritize these improvements.
The plans for improvements to the in-store experience that Nicool has outlined to address disappointing recent sales performance for Starbucks are, based on our analysis of the social conversation, warranted. “Coffeehouse Vibes,” as he puts it in his recent Wall Street Journal interview, are clearly important to consumers. Discussion of the “vibes” of a coffee shop do not just comprise a large of volume of relevant posts, but also elicits significant, strongly positive sentiment around coffee shops.
Improvements in Starbucks “vibes” could certainly lead to improvements in perceptions of the brand and, ultimately, sales. And it would be a return to the brand’s iconic, industry-shaking mission from decades ago.
Still, our analysis suggests that improving convenience and service—where consumer sentiment is currently at its weakest—may offer the clearest path to restoring favorability in the near term. With Quid, brands like Starbucks can move beyond instinct and gut feel, grounding strategic decisions in real-time consumer insight and sentiment data that illuminates both risk and opportunity.