Photo: Ben Berkes for New York Magazine

Honey’s Bistro, a fast-casual café just steps away from the LIRR in Glen Head, features many of the telltale signifiers of 2010s design and menu planning. A letter-board menu lines the wall, plastic cups are printed with GOOD VIBES SERVED DAILY, millennial pink is used liberally, and white-chocolate–pistachio matcha lattes are on offer. On a quiet Sunday afternoon, Michelle Eisen, a 42-year-old Starbucks barista turned union leader, settles on a wooden banquette, an empty coffee cup in front of her. “This coffee-shop atmosphere was brought to the States by Howard,” she tells me, referencing Starbucks’ mogul-like chairman emeritus and former CEO Howard Schultz. “He nurtured that, and he built that.”

Eisen, who was instrumental in the Starbucks unio

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