Indie coffee shops are meant to counter corporate behemoths like Starbucks – so why do they all look the same?

The anti-chain cafe has quietly become its own chain look.

Good Partner

Apr 9, 2026

By Good Partner

April 9, 2026

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Photo credit: stomy/iStock via Getty Images – Many coffee shops today seem to be aesthetically divorced from time and place.

Conrad Kickert

Jeffrey Parker

Kelly Gregg

Like many young, urban professionals, we run on coffee. We especially enjoy frequenting independently owned cafes that pride themselves on ethically sourced beverages, strong local ties and a hip aesthetic.

They’re the kinds of places that sneer at the homogenization and predictability of Tim Hortons, Second Cup, Dunkin and Starbucks.

But as public space and consumer culture researchers, we began noticing a pattern: While the invention of new, nondairy milks to mix into lattes continues to amaze us, many U.S. coffee shops seemed to share a similar aesthetic.

What was up with all the exposed brick? Why did so many of the baristas look cooler than us, but also so similar to one another? And why did most menus appear on a chalkboard, as if we were still in kindergarten?

Weren’t we supposed to be in one-of-a-kind, authentic settings that make us feel unique and, let’s admit it, slightly elevated?

As it turns out, the visual patterns we noticed had never been backed up by research. So after a quick cortado, we set out to test our hunch that local coffee shops had adopted a uniform aesthetic.

Measuring homogeneity

We asked over 100 American and Canadian young professionals living in cities to share an interior image of their favorite independent coffee shop, describe why they liked the shop’s appearance, and document aspects of its interior design.

They could select these interior design features from a list of 23 common elements that we had identified in a pilot study – brick walls, marble counters, indoor plants, local art, vintage furniture and even the look of the baristas. Respondents could also write down other details they noticed.

The elements that they selected and wrote down showed a fascinating overlap.

Baristas led the pack: Two-thirds of the participants’ favorite local coffee shops had staff with tattoos or piercings. Over half had baristas with beards. Well over half of the respondents noted that their favorite shop had chalkboards, reclaimed wood features, local art, milk foam designs on beverages, local event posters and exposed brick. A large share of the shops had vintage furniture, community message boards and free books available to patrons to read. One-third of the images had indoor plants, trees or greenery.

Barista with a beard and tattooed hands pours boiling water over coffee grounds. — Chances are your favorite local coffee shop has a barista with a beard and tattoos. Wera Rodsawang/Moment via Getty Images

Next up, we challenged the participants to identify the city where these coffee shops were located.

Using the images provided by the respondents from the initial survey, we asked 158 new and prior participants if they could match the location of the shops depicted in six photographs to Cincinnati, St. Louis or Toronto – cities chosen for their different architectural and aesthetic qualities.

Not a single participant was able to correctly identify the correct city for all the photos.

We gave respondents another chance by showing two pictures of coffee shops, one at a time. This time, the two shops were located in Chicago and San Francisco – again, places that pride themselves on their unique and recognizable design culture. They were now given the choice of these key cities to select from, as well as three wrong cities. Only 6% successfully located both coffee shops, and nearly 20% immediately gave up.

As one participant conceded: “Honestly, these aesthetics are very transferable now … they were random guesses and they could have been in any of the cities mentioned.”

In other words, independent coffee shops in North America have become so similar aesthetically that their location cannot be picked from a lineup. The purportedly unique and local feel of coffee shops has instead been homogenized into a singular, palatable, North American aesthetic.

Ironically, these shops have narrowed their aesthetics like a de facto brand franchise – exactly like the chain stores that their patrons ostensibly reject.

A young woman with dreadlocks pays for her coffee as a smiling young female barista with short hair holds out a card reader. — Exposed brick, check. Plants, check. Chalkboard, check. Tara Moore/Digital Vision via Getty Images

Computers and capital

So why is this happening?

New Yorker cultural critic Kyle Chayka has attributed aesthetic homogenization to popular social media platforms like Instagram. He calls it the “tyranny of the algorithm”: Social media algorithms promote the visuals that users are most likely to engage with. This, in turn, causes the same types of visuals to be liked and shared, since users encounter them more often. Because the algorithm sees they’re popular, it continues to promote them, in a self-reinforcing cycle. In turn, coffee shop owners also see these online images and try to replicate them in their own establishments.

Artificial intelligence will likely accelerate the digital homogenization of visual culture, since AI models are trained on massive datasets that feature widely circulated images. Whether it’s popular fashion, architecture or interior design, idiosyncrasies are collapsing into a generic, hegemonic aesthetic – what scholars Roland Meyer and Jacob Birken call “platform realism.”

Finance plays a role as well. With the average cost of starting a new coffee shop between US$80,000 and $300,000, and with only a small share of coffee shops expected to stay open beyond five years, banks are keen to reduce their risk. Many of them will therefore ask aspiring coffee shop owners to opt for cheaper interior design choices that appeal to the broadest customer base.

The consumer also plays a role

But patrons of hip coffee shops may also be to blame.

Decades before the rise of social media, AI and financial risk management, scholars such as Sharon Zukin revealed how young urban professionals paradoxically embrace the homogenization of their environment in their quest for authenticity.

Those exposed brick walls? Zukin already described how Manhattan real estate brokers had marketed them to gentrifying SoHo yuppies in the early 1980s.

Like their predecessors, today’s hipsters, creative professionals and knowledge workers are essentially cultural and aesthetic consumers. Many of them crave visuals – from fashion to architecture – that are different enough to feel cool and authentic, yet safe enough to match their lifestyle and their social status. They want a tasty latte as much as a palatable interior to drink it in.

Businesses and developers are eager to appeal to these upwardly mobile consumers. At the same time, they want to reach the biggest number of customers. So they tend to create repeatable, homogenized environments in what Zukin describes as a “symbolic economy.”

In coffee shops, patrons want more than a good espresso. They want to immerse themselves in a “scene” that matches their lifestyle and aspirations. And the exposed brick and the vintage furniture do just that – even if they’ve been copy-and-pasted in cities, small and large, across the nation.

As we chase authenticity, we may just be finding comfort in carefully curated conformity.

This article originally appeared on The Conversation. You can read it here.

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Photo credit: Anna_Pustynnikova – A tasty sandwich

Culture, Media

In America’s sandwiches, the story of a nation

A nation’s story, stacked between slices.

Good Partner

6/25/2026

Paul Freedman

Andrew P. Haley

Imogene L. Lim

Ken Albala

Megan Elias

Everyone has a favorite sandwich, often prepared to an exacting degree of specification: Turkey or ham? Grilled or toasted? Mayo or mustard? White or whole wheat?

We reached out to five food historians and asked them to tell the story of a sandwich of their choosing. The responses included staples like peanut butter and jelly, as well as regional fare like New England’s chow mein sandwich.

Together, they show how the sandwiches we eat (or used to eat) do more than fill us up during our lunch breaks. In their stories are themes of immigration and globalization, of class and gender, and of resourcefulness and creativity.

A taste of home for working women

Megan Elias, Boston University

The tuna salad sandwich originated from an impulse to conserve, only to become a symbol of excess.

In the 19th century – before the era of supermarkets and cheap groceries – most Americans avoided wasting food. Scraps of chicken, ham or fish from supper would be mixed with mayonnaise and served on lettuce for lunch. Leftovers of celery, pickles and olives – served as supper “relishes” – would also be folded into the mix.

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The versions of these salads that incorporated fish tended to use salmon, white fish or trout. Most Americans didn’t cook (or even know of) tuna.

Around the end of the 19th century, middle-class women began to spend more time in public, patronizing department stores, lectures and museums. Since social conventions kept these women out of the saloons where men ate, lunch restaurants opened up to cater to this new clientele. They offered women exactly the kind of foods they had served each other at home: salads. While salads made at home often were composed of leftovers, those at lunch restaurants were made from scratch. Fish and shellfish salads were typical fare.

A 1949 ad in Ladies’ Home Journal announces a ‘Revolution in Tuna.’ Internet Archive Book Images

When further social and economic changes brought women into the public as office and department store workers, they found fish salads waiting for them at the affordable lunch counters patronized by busy urban workers. Unlike the ladies’ lunch, the office lunch hour had time limits. So lunch counters came up with the idea of offering the salads between two pieces of bread, which sped up table turnover and encouraged patrons to get lunch to go.

When canned tuna was introduced in the early 20th century, lunch counters and home cooks could skip the step of cooking a fish and go straight to the salad. But there was downside: The immense popularity of canned tuna led to the growth of a global industry that has severely depleted stocks and led to the unintended slaughter of millions of dolphins. A clever way to use dinner scraps has become a global crisis of conscience and capitalism.

I like mine on toasted rye.

East meets West in Fall River, Massachusetts

Imogene Lim, Vancouver Island University

“Gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein,” Warren Zevon sings in his 1978 hit “Werewolves of London,” a nod to the popular Chinese stir-fried noodle dish.

During that same decade, Alika and the Happy Samoans, the house band for a Chinese restaurant in Fall River, Massachusetts, also paid tribute to chow mein with a song titled “Chow Mein Sandwich.”

Chow mein in a sandwich? Is that a real thing?

I was first introduced to the chow mein sandwich while completing my doctorate at Brown University. Even as the child of a Chinatown restaurateur from Vancouver, I viewed the sandwich as something of a mystery. It led to a post-doctoral fellowship and a paper about Chinese entrepreneurship in New England.

The chow mein sandwich is the quintessential “East meets West” food, and it’s largely associated with New England’s Chinese restaurants – specifically, those of Fall River, a city crowded with textile mills near the Rhode Island border.

The sandwich became popular in the 1920s because it was filling and cheap: Workers munched on them in factory canteens, while their kids ate them for lunch in the parish schools, especially on meatless Fridays. It would go on to be available at some “five and dime” lunch counters, like Kresge’s and Woolworth – and even at Nathan’s in Coney Island.

Fall River’s famous chow mein sandwich. Roadfood

It’s exactly what it sounds like: a sandwich filled with chow mein (deep-fried, flat noodles, topped with a ladle of brown gravy, onions, celery and bean sprouts). If you want to make your own authentic sandwich at home, I recommend using Hoo Mee Chow Mein Mix, which is still made in Fall River. It can be served in a bun (à la sloppy joe) or between sliced white bread, much like a hot turkey sandwich with gravy. The classic meal includes the sandwich, french fries and orange soda.

For those who grew up in the Fall River area, the chow mein sandwich is a reminder of home. Just ask famous chef (and Fall River native) Emeril Lagasse, who came up with his own “Fall River chow mein” recipe.

And at one time, Fall River expats living in Los Angeles would hold a “Fall River Day.”

On the menu? Chow mein sandwiches, of course.

A snack for the elites

Paul Freedman, Yale University

Unlike many American food trends of the 1890s, such as the Waldorf salad and chafing dishes, the club sandwich has endured, immune to obsolescence.

The sandwich originated in the country’s stuffy gentlemen’s clubs, which are known – to this day – for a conservatism that includes loyalty to outdated cuisine. (The Wilmington Club in Delaware continues to serve terrapin, while the Philadelphia Club’s specialties include veal and ham pie.) So the club sandwich’s spread to the rest of the population, along with its lasting popularity, is a testament to its inventiveness and appeal.

A two-layer affair, the club sandwich calls for three pieces of toasted bread spread with mayonnaise and filled with chicken or turkey, bacon, lettuce and tomato. Usually the sandwich is cut into two triangles and held together with a toothpick stuck in each half.

Some believe it should be eaten with a fork and knife, and its blend of elegance and blandness make the club sandwich a permanent feature of country and city club cuisine.

The club sandwich: A perfect blend of elegance and blandness. Alena Haurylik

As far back as 1889, there are references to a Union Club sandwich of turkey or ham on toast. The Saratoga Club-House offered a club sandwich on its menu beginning in 1894.

Interestingly, until the 1920s, sandwiches were identified with ladies’ lunch places that served “dainty” food. The first club sandwich recipe comes from an 1899 book of “salads, sandwiches and chafing-dish dainties,” and its most famous proponent was Wallis Simpson, the American woman whom Edward VIII abdicated the throne of Great Britain to marry.

Nonetheless, an 1889 article from the New York Sun entitled “An Appetizing Sandwich: A Dainty Treat That Has Made a New York Chef Popular” describes the Union Club sandwich as appropriate for a post-theater supper, or something light to be eaten before a nightcap. This was one type of sandwich that men could indulge in, the article seemed to be saying – as long as it wasn’t eaten for lunch.

New York City’s Union Club served an early version of the club sandwich that was a hit. Gryffindor, CC BY-SA

‘The combination is delicious and original’

Ken Albala, University of the Pacific

While the peanut butter and jelly sandwich eventually became a staple of elementary school cafeterias, it actually has upper-crust origins.

In the late-19th century, at elegant ladies’ luncheons, a popular snack was small, crustless tea sandwiches with butter and cucumber, cold cuts or cheese. Around this time, health food advocates like John Harvey Kellogg started promoting peanut products as a replacement for animal-based foods (butter included). So for a vegetarian option at these luncheons, peanut butter simply replaced regular butter.

One of the earliest known recipes that suggested including jelly with peanut butter appeared in a 1901 issue of the Boston Cooking School Magazine.

“For variety,” author Julia Davis Chandler wrote, “some day try making little sandwiches, or bread fingers, of three very thin layers of bread and two of filling, one of peanut paste, whatever brand you prefer, and currant or crabapple jelly for the other. The combination is delicious, and so far as I know original.”

The sandwich moved from garden parties to lunchboxes in the 1920s, when peanut butter started to be mass produced with hydrogenated vegetable oil and sugar. Marketers of the Skippy brand targeted children as a potential new audience, and thus the association with school lunches was forged.

The classic version of the sandwich is made with soft, sliced white bread, creamy or chunky peanut butter and jelly. Outside of the United States, the peanut butter and jelly sandwich is rare – much of the world views the combination as repulsive.

These days, many try to avoid white bread and hydrogenated fats. Nonetheless, the sandwich has a nostalgic appeal for many Americans, and recipes for high-end versions – with freshly ground peanuts, artisanal bread or unusual jams – now circulate on the web.

The Daughters of the Confederacy get creative

Andrew P. Haley, University of Southern Mississippi

The Scotch woodcock is probably not Scottish. It’s arguably not even a sandwich. A favorite of Oxford students and members of Parliament until the mid-20th century, the dish is generally prepared by layering anchovy paste and eggs on toast.

Like its cheesier cousin, the Welsh rabbit (better known as rarebit), its name is fanciful. Perhaps there was something about the name, if not the ingredients, that sparked the imagination of Miss Frances Lusk of Jackson, Mississippi.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy cookbook features a take on the Scotch woodcock. McCain Library and Archives, The University of Southern Mississippi, CC BY-SA

Inspired to add a little British sophistication to her entertaining, she crafted her own version of the Scotch woodcock for a 1911 United Daughters of the Confederacy fundraising cookbook. Miss Lusk’s woodcock sandwich mixed strained tomatoes and melted cheese, added raw eggs, and slathered the paste between layers of bread (or biscuits).

As food historian Bee Wilson argues in her history of the sandwich, American sandwiches distinguished themselves from their British counterparts by the scale of their ambition. Imitating the rising skylines of American cities, many were towering affairs that celebrated abundance.

But those sandwiches were the sandwiches of urban lunchrooms and, later, diners. In the homes of southern clubwomen, the sandwich was a way to marry British sophistication to American creativity.

For example, the United Daughters of the Confederacy cookbook included “sweetbread sandwiches,” made by heating canned offal (animal trimmings) and slathering the mashed mixture between two pieces of toast. There’s also a “green pepper sandwich,” crafted from “very thin” slices of bread and “very thin” slices of green pepper.

Such creative combinations weren’t limited to the elites of Mississippi’s capital city. In the plantation homes of the Mississippi Delta, members of the Coahoma Woman’s Club served sandwiches of English walnuts, black walnuts and stuffed olives ground into a colorful paste. They also assembled “Friendship Sandwiches” from grated cucumbers, onions, celery and green peppers mixed with cottage cheese and mayonnaise. Meanwhile, the industrial elite of Laurel, Mississippi, served mashed bacon and eggs sandwiches and creamed sardine sandwiches.

Not all of these amalgamations were capped by a slice of bread, so purists might balk at calling them sandwiches. But these ladies did – and they proudly tied up their original creations with ribbons.

This article originally appeared on The Conversation. You can read it here.

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Photo credit: State Library of Queensland – State Library of Queensland

Culture, Fashion

Wool swimsuits used to be standard beachwear – is it time to bring them back?

Old-school swimwear gets a sustainable second look

Good Partner

6/25/2026

Lorinda Cramer

Woollen swimwear, popular a century ago, might soon make a splash on Australian beaches again.

In the 19th century, when natural fibres were the only option, beach-goers donned costumes made of wool or cotton. Swimsuits worn at the water’s edge or in the crashing waves transformed across the 20th century from natural fibres to sleek, high-performance synthetics.

But with concern mounting over microplastics and the search for sustainable options, the woollen swimsuits of the past could be the swimwear of the future.

Shifting (and shrinking) swimsuits

Plenty who enjoyed a day on the sand in the first decades of the 20th century did so fully clothed. It was not uncommon for men to dress for the beach in three-piece suits or for women to wear gowns that fell to their ankles.

At the beginning of the last century, people often went to the beach fully clothed. National Museum of Australia

But women who ventured into the water donned belted, knee-length bathing gowns that featured bloomers to conceal the legs. Men’s two-piece bathing costumes revealed a little more, with a top extending to the thighs paired with shorts to the knees.

In the space of a couple of decades, however, swimsuits radically changed. Styles altered as attitudes to the exposure of bodies relaxed, shifting ideas around public morality.

Both men and women were modestly dressed for swimming. State Library of Queensland

The 1930s witnessed a rise in topless bathing for men as they adopted trunks. Some had half skirts at the front, and many sported belts with buckles to keep them firmly on the waist.

Women’s swimwear now revealed the arms, legs and back – then even more when bikinis appeared on Australian beaches in 1950. Shock rippled across the sand.

Swimwear had reached body-baring new dimensions.

As the decades passed, bathing suits got smaller. Mark Strizic/State Library of Victoria

Wool on the beach

Knitted wool – rather than woven wool or cotton – fitted swimwear snugly to the body, helping it shrink in size.

For wearers of Foy & Gibson’s evocatively named wool suits in the late 1920s and early 1930s – “Sunnybeach”, “Sunbath”, “Seafit” and “Siren” among them – this knit offered comfort and freedom.

The Australian Women’s Weekly provided instructions to knit these bathers in 1938. Trove

Speedo’s knitted wool trucks in the late 1930s were made to streamline men’s figures, sparking the enticing slogan: “Next to your figure Speedo looks best!”

Those with knitting skills could make their own swimsuits that decade, using instructions like those given in the Australian Women’s Weekly.

With the introduction of “Lastex” – a rubber yarn – to woollen swimsuits in the 1930s, they transitioned to even more body-hugging fits. These exuded a new kind of glamorous appeal that elevated swimwear to a “sea-ductive” (as one newspaper columnist quipped) new height.

The synthetic swimsuit revolution

When synthetics burst onto the market, Australians embraced the new “modern” fibres. Wool was also in short supply, prioritised for uniforms and blankets for second world war troops.

Swimwear started to be made in the so-called “miracle” fibres: nylon in the 1940s, then polyester (known as “Terylene” in Australia) in the 1950s. From the 1960s, “Lycra” (also called elastane and spandex) was blended into swimsuits. These made sleeker, slimmer, more satin-like suits.

By the 1960s, bathing suits were more streamlined and made with synthetic fibres. H. Dacre Stubbs/State Library of Victoria, CC BY

Neoprene, a foam fabric, first appeared in wetsuits on Australia’s beaches in the late 1950s – increasing the possibilities for winter surfing. Wetsuits improved significantly in decades to follow, keeping their wearer warm by trapping a thin layer of water heated by the body.

In the pool, our Olympic swimmers tested more advanced fabrics. Those at the Sydney Games in 2000 wore the Speedo “fastskin”, with its compression fabric and replication of shark skin scales that streamlined the body in the water.

These full-body swimsuits worn at the 2000 Olympics were designed to be sleek in the water. AAP Photo/Dean Lewins

More recently, swimsuits made from recycled plastic – bottles, bags and other plastic waste – have emerged as an eco-friendly option. Some question, however, just how green these recycled swimmers truly are when reducing all plastic consumption is needed to make a difference.

Why wool, again?

We might dismiss woollen swimsuits from the 20th century’s first decades as unpleasant or uncomfortable to wear. Or we might see them as unflattering for the way they sagged when wet.

But new processes for working with wool suggest it is ideal to wear in the water. New merino boardshorts have been designed to dry in less than seven minutes. Wool is also thermo-regulating, helping the body maintain an even temperature.

It’s not just that wool options are increasingly available. As we buy and throw away clothing at alarming rates, some have embraced the natural fibre as a sustainable, renewable alternative to synthetics.

Today’s knitted bathers look quite different to these. Museums Victoria

Wool is biodegradable, naturally returning to and nourishing the earth, unlike synthetics that can take centuries to break down. Clothes in artificial fibres linger in landfill, with devastating consequences.

Our growing awareness of microplastics – tiny fibres released with washing that pollute marine (and other) environments – is also driving this shift.

So is it time to rethink wearing wool as you head to the beach this summer?

This article originally appeared on The Conversation. You can read it here.

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Photo credit: Canva – (left) A woman eats, (center) a woman walks, (right) a woman shops at a farmers market.

Culture, Media

Why ‘Main Character Energy’ videos are making everyday life feel extraordinary

“I’m 100% doing this tomorrow.”

Mark Wales

6/25/2026

A rapidly growing trend on TikTok encourages people to see themselves as the protagonist of their own lives. In “main character energy” videos, creators turn ordinary moments into cinema. Clips of people walking to work, grabbing coffee, or reading a book sometimes attract thousands of views after specialized music and stylized cuts are added.

The social media posts might look like just another aesthetic trend. But the reason people keep returning and liking them seems less about style and more about how they turn a regular day into something special.

What is “main character energy” all about?

“Main character energy” is Internet slang for seeing yourself as the central figure of your own story. Not in an inflated sense, but more in a way that turns ordinary routines into something a little more intentional.

TikTok creators have embraced the trend, creating an easily recognizable video that encourages self-focus and a playful, story-driven way of seeing themselves. Entire feeds are now filled with “main character walks” and similar clips of daily activities where nothing remarkable happens, but the attitude suggests it matters.

Making the ordinary feel extraordinary

People seem to really respond to the trend. Comment sections are filled with thoughts about their own “main character” moments. The video just above, posted by @chelsbol received over 15,000 comments.

“Me every time I walk home from Trader Joe’s”

“my newest coping tool has been: *make it an imaginary situation, you are now playing pretend, cosplaying even*

“this is gonna flip my mindset so much thank you.”

“Im 100% doing this tomorrow”

“Be your starring role in your own movie everyday!”

“Making the best out of any situation”

People generally move through their lives from one obligation to another. Work, errands, commuting, cooking, cleaning, and endless scrolling can make days blend in a blur. In that repeated normalcy, a video that slows down and has a little theatrical fun can feel surprisingly refreshing.

Balancing fun against narcissism

However, these unique videos may point to deeper underlying concerns. In a Psychology Today article, psychotherapist Duygu Balan warns that what begins as self-discovery can turn into content made primarily for clicks and likes. There’s a toxic risk when personal growth becomes something curated for an audience.

The same videos that encourage people to romanticize their own lives can also invite comparison. Videos carefully crafted to elicit audience engagement rarely project reality. A 2025 study in Frontiers in Psychology found that social comparison on social media can dramatically affect a person’s mental health. Viewers don’t always stop at appreciating someone else’s perspective. Sometimes they get lost in measuring their own lives against it.

Most successful “main character energy” creators focus on more ordinary moments than extraordinary ones. The appeal isn’t necessarily about having a better life. It’s more about finding a different way to approach the one you already have.

Whether people see the trend as a helpful mindset or just another social media trend, its popularity suggests viewers crave it. By framing routine differently, they invite the audience to craft a little more joy in the mundane of their own lives.

At their best, these videos aren’t about becoming the star of a movie. They propose finding meaning from the moments people often overlook. In a culture driven by productivity, infusing everyday life with a little lighthearted whimsy is a big reason people keep watching.

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