Saturday at Starbucks

I somehow managed to make myself wake up relatively early on a Saturday morning and made my way to what I hoped would be a peaceful Starbucks experience. I chose to go to a Starbucks that was on the north side of Atlanta, more for the convenience of what I wanted to get done afterwards than anything else, but I figured any Starbucks would do for my first outing. I've been to Starbucks before, but previous trips have been to get a cup of coffee and go. I never really hung out to see what all of the people who stayed in were up to. The first thing that I noticed was that most people did what I typically do. They came in and got some coffee and left. Being in the more affluent neighborhoods of north Atlanta meant that most of the customers were dressed in either nice weekend clothes, or expensive exercise suits. I noticed that the "Baristas" had their own vocabulary when talking to each other about ordered drinks, but I didn't pick up on much more of it that drink sizes and what type of milk was in each drink. I'll certainly have to see if there's more to it than simply speaking fast. The shop had newspapers in it for people to read, they had a ratty old chess set that no one touched (how did it get ratty?), all of the tables were set up so if you wanted to accomidate a large group, you would have to do some moving around of furniture. Cafes of Europe? I once went to a restaurant in downtown Atlanta that only had one table that would seat more than four people. I got a bit mad and asked why they planned so poorly, and the manager insisted that it was designed to be like a European Cafe where they never had more than four to a table. This was somehow designed to encourage inter-table socialization. Could Starbucks have the socialization goal in mind, or just the aping of European lifestyle?
The Barista were kept pretty busy serving drinks, traffic wasn't heavy, but constant enough that they didn't do much more than serve people while I was there. That sounds kind of obvious, but the detail I was noticing wasn't them being busy, but rather there were no lulls for the half-hour that I drank my coffee. The other customers who were sitting in the store were very much self-absorbed. One guy read a book, another read a newspaper in jogging clothes, and two had laptops and they looked important. I spoke to none of them, and they spoke to no one else. No one really seemed to notice the presence of other people. I expected a bit more interaction, but all I saw was the typical southern social interaction where people smiled as you squeezed by, but no one was really looking to talk to anyone else. Cellphones. Need I say more? These are mundane details, I know, so I'm wondering if I missed out on some greater scheme. It seems like the customers in this Starbucks were using it as a place to get away from people while still being among people. The Starbucks seemed to be the place where they could be alone, but they had to go out into public to be left alone. I know I'm making a big assumption with that, and I need to make sure to ask someone directly about this later.
My only personal interaction was with the guy working the register. His name was James. I asked him brief questions that had to do with Starbucks. I asked him why Starbucks doesn't have regular sizes? I figured it was because they were being pretentious, but the answer was that once upon a time, Starbucks only had two sizes- short and tall. Customers wanted more, but they didn't want to leave out the old customers who were used to ordering by short and tall, so they added Grande. Even after they added Grande, they still had demands for more. So, they added a twenty ounce cup, Venti, which is butchered Italian for twenty. So, I learned that the size vernacular isn't about being above regular sizes, but rather about making changes to accomidate customers without disturbing the old ones.
Things I need to do later: Talk to customers, visit at night, visit on work days during work hours, different locations (I imagine the Starbucks in Little Five Points will be different than the one in North Atlanta).