The Return of Something That Never Left.
- Nick Gray
- Oct 12, 2025
- 6 min read
Everyone’s talking about “third places” again, as if it’s a new idea. But the best stores have been doing this for decades.They’ve always been spaces that pulse with culture, belonging, and energy.
I’ve spent so much time throughout my career walking shop floors, from Adidas Originals to Nike, Sneakerboy, and Westfield, watching how people move, feel, and connect. It's always been and is still today where the answers are if you want to see them. And after twenty-five years in this industry, I can tell you something that we seem to have forgotten more recently, good stores have always been third places.
Back then, we didn’t call it a third place and probably because we never needed to call it that. We just knew that a store wasn’t a box of product but a living, breathing organism. It pulsed with culture, belonging, and rhythm.
The one thing I have always focused on and known is at Adidas Originals, we weren’t selling sneakers; we were curating self-expression, at Nike, the community didn’t form around product launches, it formed around shared belief, at Sneakerboy, we knew sometimes that the line outside was more valuable than the product inside because that line was simply culture made visible. At Westfield, we saw that the most successful precincts weren’t always the newest, they were normally just the ones that felt alive.
So when I see headlines about the “return of third-place retail,” I can’t help but smile and you should too. We're not witnessing innovation here in my opinion. We’re just witnessing amnesia.
We’re Living Through a Retail Déjà Vu
Everyone is suddenly talking about “third places” and stores as community hubs where people linger, connect, and belong. But the truth is, this isn’t new. Good stores have always done this and I have seen it executed first hand so many times over. The difference now is necessity. Brands aren’t adding coffee machines and couches because it’s fashionable; they’re doing it because the traditional model has now collapsed. Attention has fragmented and loyalty has evaporated. Convenience, once a competitive edge, is now the baseline and when products, price, and speed are all indistinguishable, the only defensible advantage left is energy.
I’ve said it before and I will say it again, the modern store doesn’t exist to distribute products; it exists to distribute feeling. It’s not about selling and hasn't been for a long time, it’s all about sustaining belonging and what used to be good design is now survival.
When the Economic Model Fell Apart
Retail once flourished and took flight on efficiency, it was all about volume, visibility, and velocity. But digital commerce stripped all three of their meaning. When the world can access anything, anywhere, at any time, the store’s role has had to shift from distribution to distinction. This isn't something new, just making sure in case there is someone out there that still missed that. Its value is no longer what it sells; it’s how it feels.
We’ve climate and time we have entered now is an attention recession, and in that vacuum, presence has become the ultimate luxury. People are craving spaces that ground them, not feed their fatigue. They want experiences that remind them they’re human and not data. So if you missed it that’s why physical space has again become so sacred again. This time however, the audience has changed and so have their expectations.
The New Consumer Mindset
Today’s consumer is very emotionally literate, pretty digitally fatigued, and unfortunately spiritually under-stimulated. They don’t want more choice; they want more meaning. They don’t want to be targeted; they want to be trusted. And this shows up differently across generations so lets break it down against you targeted audience:
Gen Z — Searching for Identity and Safety
Raised in the permanent performance of social media, Gen Z craves spaces where they can exist without the filter. They want to feel safe being seen and if your store doesn’t reflect inclusivity in tone, language, and energy, they’ll just walk out faster than they walked in. They’re not seeking novelty, they're seeking authentic recognition.
Millennials — Searching for Connection and Discovery
Millennials are ultimately burnt out now from the endless scroll of the same old same old. They want surprise, texture, and imperfection and something that feels human again. They don’t want to be “activated.” They want to be invited into something real. “Talk to me, don’t sell to me.”
Gen X & Boomers — Searching for Trust and Meaning
This group has now lived through every format in retail, department stores, malls, pop-ups, dot-com booms. They’re not impressed by innovation like we might think; they’re actually moved by sincerity. There's nothing like a warm greeting or a genuine conversation which means more to them than any app-based incentive.
Across all generations there is one truth that is always the same, people now decide where to spend their time based on how it feels to be there and this emotional return is the new ROI.
The Illusion of Community
We have to be so careful here, this current wave of “third-place retail” is often nothing more than theatre. Free coffee. DJ sets. Neon statements about belonging, you know those places as well as I do. Don't be fooled, proximity isn’t connection and comfort isn’t community. You simply can’t fabricate intimacy through design alone.
A café corner doesn’t make you inclusive, a playlist doesn’t make you human and a free drink doesn’t make you trustworthy. Why? Because true community is the by-product of emotional truth. What that means is it emerges when the people behind the brand genuinely care about the people in front of them and it’s the difference between a store that hosts conversation and one that listens.
So What Does It Takes to Build a Real Third Place Now
Building a modern third place isn’t about copying hospitality. It’s about restoring hospitality’s soul.
To get it right, we as brands and retailers need to design for three layers:
Purpose Before Product - A store needs to stand for something more than the things it sells. Purpose gives people that anchor and then your product gives them proof.
Emotional Architecture - Everything communicates and everything you do sends a message, lighting, scent, texture and pace. The question isn’t “Does it look good?” but “Does it feel right?” Remember you’re not designing a space; you’re trying to design a state of mind.
Human Hosts, Not Staff - Technology may scale transactions, but in my opinion only people can scale trust. Never forget your team’s emotional intelligence is your most valuable asset. They don’t just represent your brand; they embody it.
So if and when you combine those layers, you no longer get a store. You start to get a heartbeat.
The Emotional Economy
We’ve moved from the economy of efficiency to the economy of emotion and what that means is simple, the most successful brands today won’t and don’t optimise for conversion but instead they optimise for chemistry.
When someone leaves your store feeling better than when they arrived, that’s marketing and PR that money can’t buy. That’s what keeps them coming back and that’s what they tell their friends about.
Energy is the most reliable performance indicator in retail. It was something I’ve always paid very close attention to across my years at some of the best brands in the world and it is simply because energy is memory and memory is what sells.
Looking Ahead
If you ask me how retail is to rebuild itself, it must stop chasing attention and start earning affection and the next era of retail is not defined by who has the biggest screen or the best app or who has the most data. The competitive advantage is and will be defined by who can make people feel something real. It will literally be what separates the stores that merely look like they are alive and the ones that truly are
What used to be good design is now survival and what used to be art, creating spaces people love to return to has become the single most valuable skill in business.
By Nick Gray | Founder, IGU Global
