third place
n.— «Librarians and other experts say the growing conflicts are the result of an increase in the number of latchkey children, a decrease in civility among young people and a dearth of “third places”—neither home nor school—where kids can be kids.» —“Lock the Library! Rowdy Students Are Taking Over” by Tina Kelley New York Times Jan. 2, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...
How is this really different from Starbucks’ referring to itself as a third place (not home and not *work*)?
Because it applies to students, not businesspeople. The subtleties matter. Also, the term is probably older than Starbuck’s extended franchise expansion, as you can see from the cites at Word Spy. Note the Freud and Oldenburg reference there. A related term is the French troisième bureau, which usually refers to a bar or brasserie or the apartment of a mistress.