On Thanksgiving week, Gen Z plans to connect over coffee, not cocktails
About 70% of members of Gen Z surveyed by Morning Consult plan to visit a coffee shop during Thanksgiving week, while 33% say they’ll go to a bar or pub, according to new findings.
On a recent afternoon, nearly every seat at the Starbucks coffeehouse at 69th & 1st on New York’s Upper East Side was filled. At one table, a customer finalized a portrait he was sketching. At another, students were doing homework and enjoying a treat. Nearby, nurses on a break from a nearby hospital were picking up coffees. Lately, even some of the regulars who come in separately have begun connecting and talking to each other.
“There’s a lot more people sitting down, especially since the uplift,” said the coffeehouse manager, Kylee S., about her recently renovated café. And during the holidays especially, her Starbucks takes on an especially warm, festive feel. For the last seven years, ever since Kylee became a partner (employee), she said she’s chosen to work each Thanksgiving.
While she spends Christmas with her family in California, Thanksgiving is for her Starbucks “work family,” she said. And it’s for her family of customers, many of whom she’s gotten to know well and greets by name and with questions about their family. This Thanksgiving, she and other partners will be sharing a potluck.
“There’s a cozy feeling,” said Kylee. For customers who are visiting from out of town, Starbucks is safe and familiar. On Thanksgiving and other holidays, it can also be a place of respite. “People come in the morning to just take a breath before the day starts,” she said.
The holidays can be a stressful time and Thanksgiving week is the busiest travel time of the year, with nearly 82 million Americans planning to travel at least 50 miles from home, AAA recently projected. But in the midst of the hustle, people are also looking for a place to pause and connect, especially those who are part of Gen Z (born between 1997 and 2012), according to a recent survey conducted by Morning Consult for Starbucks.
The survey found that meeting a friend or loved one for coffee tops the list of Thanksgiving week activities —beating out going to bars and pubs. Nearly six in 10 people (58%) say they plan to visit a coffee shop (a sit-down café, drive-thru or grab-and-go) during Thanksgiving week, according to the survey, which polled a national sample of 2,201 U.S. adults.*
That number is even higher among Gen Z consumers — 70% of those surveyed said they plan to visit a coffee shop during Thanksgiving week. That’s in comparison to just a third (33%) who said they plan to go to a bar or pub.
But what’s also notable is that nearly half (47%) of Gen Z consumers said when they go to a coffee shop Thanksgiving week, they intend to sit down and savor the moment – more than any other generation surveyed except Millennials.
Connection to combat loneliness
In-person connection is something members of Gen Z crave, research shows. It’s a generation that came of age going to school online during the pandemic or beginning their careers as remote workers and report feeling lonelier than the average U.S. adult. Another survey by Morning Consult found that Gen Z adults are the group that expresses the strongest desire to meet new people more often.
The value of connecting in person is something Kylee, who is a member of Gen Z herself, said she’s been seeing more of in recent years in the coffeehouses she’s worked at since the long, lonely days of the pandemic.
“I can feel the socialness coming back,” she said.
‘It’s where life plays out’
Meredith Sandland has a keen understanding of the power of connection at a coffeehouse. She met her husband at a Starbucks in California. And for years, she and her mother have had a holiday tradition of getting Eggnog Lattes at Starbucks. While she’s a longtime Starbucks customer, she is also the company’s executive vice president, chief coffeehouse design and development officer. A big part of her job is to create an environment where customers can feel at home.
“Starbucks is the community coffeehouse — welcoming to everybody. It’s where life plays out,” she said. “It’s where I met my husband, and it might be where you’re working or someone is studying for a test, or a job interview is taking place.”
For decades, Starbucks has served as a “Third Place” — a welcoming space between home and work where people come together. During the holidays, that’s especially true, she said.
“Thanksgiving is for reconnecting with family and friends, whether that’s young adults going home to reconnect with friends from high school or going shopping and connecting over a mocha with your mother,” she said. “Our coffeehouses are warm and welcoming to all.”
Starbucks is the community coffeehouse — welcoming to everybody. It’s where life plays out.”
Other findings of the new Morning Consult survey include:
- Coffee is part of the holiday hustle: 50% of those visiting coffee shops Thanksgiving week will stop in while shopping or running errands.
- 81% of those who plan to visit a coffee shop during Thanksgiving week say they’ll make a stop on Black Friday, most commonly for a seasonal beverage (42%), post-Thanksgiving refresh (37%) or a shopping break (32%).
- Among all those who plan to connect at a coffee shop, 33% surveyed say those they’ll meet up with include close friends, 25% with a romantic partner or date, 22% immediate family. (For Gen Z consumers, 44% are most likely to meet up with immediate family, 37% with a romantic partner or date and 35% with close friends.)
*Starbucks partnered with Morning Consult to explore Americans’ plans to visit coffee shops during Thanksgiving week. The survey was conducted Nov. 14–16, 2025, among a national sample of 2,201 U.S. adults. Most questions were asked among those who plan to visit a coffee shop during Thanksgiving week (“coffee shop visitors,” n=1,258). Data were weighted to reflect U.S. adults by gender, age, race, education, and region. The margin of error is +/- 2% for the overall sample and +/- 3% for coffee shop visitors.
