We know teens love their Strawberry Acai Refreshers, their Caramel Frappuccinos, and their cake pops from Starbucks. But the coffee chain is so deeply integrated into the lives of teens that they don’t just use it to fuel their mornings and as a meetup spot: They also use it as currency.
That’s one of the findings of a new report from Cafeteria, an app that pays teens for their brand insights. Teens don’t just pay each other back with cash, Cash App, or Venmo. Instead of actually handing over dollars, they’re swapping lattes, cold brews, and chais from Starbucks when they owe each other money, with 30.7% of teens saying they offer to pay “next time.” The coffee giant was the only brand that teens mentioned using to settle up.
Starbucks is the number-one coffee spot for teens and the number-two restaurant (behind Chick-fil-A). Given how frequently teens are hitting up the coffee chain, it makes a lot of sense that they would rely on it to even out finances. Of course, teens still pay each other back in other ways: 23.9% use Venmo to send a friend money they borrowed and some still rely on the old-fashioned method, with 22.8% handing over cash. But according to the Cafeteria report, Starbucks orders are “the ultimate IOU.”
The brand is so popular with teens that the demographic often knows their best friend’s Starbucks order, too. In a series of questions it called the “real friend test,” Cafeteria asked teens what their best friend’s order was. A whopping 89% knew their best friend’s exact drink, down to the size, the milk, and the drizzles.
Teens have food favorites at the chain, too. According to 13.5% of the teens in the survey, Starbucks is a favorite not just for coffee or paybacks, but for a lunchtime staple: grilled cheese. The teens called the selection their favorite menu item at the chain.
“It’s literally the best thing on the menu,” one 17-year-old female said in the report. “And then I’ll get it with, like, a cake pop, obviously.”
Snagging limited-time offerings is a driving factor behind teens’ spending, which Starbucks has leaned into with holiday drinks and the new Wicked-themed drinks: Glinda’s Pink Potion and Elphaba’s Cold Brew. (Such offerings also make for solid social media posts, which are a huge incentive for the demographic.) But it’s not the only brand with rotating menus that create a sense of urgency for teens. According to the report, Crumbl, the maker of giant cookies whose flavors rotate weekly, is hot right now (even if most of the cookies are, er, cold). It was the only food brand teens mentioned when asked what their “must-try” brands were. Crumbl has seen major success online as teens try out and rank their favorite cookies. Many even try them just to hate on new flavors, in scathing reviews on sites such as Reddit.
Cafeteria’s report demonstrates teens’ obsession with ultra-popular brands, such as Starbucks and Crumbl. But it also highlights up-and-coming brands in what it calls “pre-trends.” In the retail industry, it names a few of those “soon-to-pop” brands, including Puma, Hey Dude, GymShark, and Princess Polly. When it comes to beauty, move over Sephora: Merit, Tarte, and Ouai are among the next big makeup brands to take over with teens.
The Cafeteria app asks teens to weigh in on their favorite brands and, in exchange, it pays them for their insights. It describes itself as a “direct relationship between brands and teens, driving a unique and authentic creative economy.” It says it has onboarded startups as well as top brands, all of which want to hear from teens in their own voice, in order to better their brands for a teen audience.
