12 Bizarre Sights in an NYC Starbucks

The longer you stay being a productive adult, the more you’ll witness on a typical day at a Starbucks in the city.

Leigh Victoria Phan, MS
5 min readOct 17, 2022
Photo Courtesy of ManuPadilla on Adobe Stock

Whether you love them or hate them, Starbucks is such a well-known chain that it’s practically part of our culture. Some would argue that with the prices they charge, it’s the epitome of indulgence. Others enjoy the sugar rushes too much or appreciate the fact that Starbucks does actually do some good things for their employees.

Wherever you stand on the Starbucks debate, we’re looking at the odd cookies you find in Starbucks. Personally, I choose to tread the middle ground. I grab Starbucks gift cards when they go half-price on Groupon. If I need a place to compose myself before an important meeting or interview and Starbucks is the most convenient option, well, I’ll go.

Yet the Starbucks locations in New York City are host to some of the strangest sights you’ll ever witness in public.

There are a lot of things that happen at Starbuckses in the city that you just don’t really see elsewhere. I won’t say that you’ll only see them at NYC Starbuckses because my medical researcher friends would have a stroke. Saying only is almost always false…

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Leigh Victoria Phan, MS

Brooklyn-based writer and poet. Designer in NYC. Drinks books and loves coffee. Has an MS from NYU in Integrated Design & Media. Working on an MFA in Fiction.