Here's news for the savvy pick-up artist: Local cafˇs are being utilized for purposes besides just drinking coffee.

University of Arizona students and several coffee shop employees agree that they have encountered cafe-goers initiating romantic entanglements.

Jason Greenway, shift supervisor at Starbucks, 802 E. University Blvd., personifies this new trend.

"My girlfriend was a (Starbucks) regular," Greenway said. "Pretty much all of us (who work here) have dated regulars here and there. Starbucks creates the third place; it's not your house, it's not your work (and) it's better than the bar."

Kevin Dicus, a classics graduate student, agreed that coffee shops rank higher than bars on the romance scale.

"At a bar, everybody knows people's intentions are to score or pick up; a lot of people go to a coffee shop with a veiled intention," Dicus said. "You can watch the dynamics of people at a coffee shop. It's less open than a bar, but it's pretty much the same, especially (as you get) closer to campus."

Mark Bassett, self-proclaimed "pizza guy" at the coffee shop/eatery Time Market, 444 E. University Blvd., said cafˇs have all but replaced other meeting places in the quest for romance.

"It's a social niche," he said. "(People) used to go to church to meet people, and now you go to coffee shops. With our young culture, coffee shops are definitely a gathering place."

Time Market cashier Mika Shiner, an art and math junior, added that while coffee shops may be "social hubs," they have not replaced other means of meeting a romantic partner.

"I think people go to (coffee shops to) socialize but not necessarily to pick people up," Shiner said.

Christopher Davis, liberties freshman and employee of Rainbow Planet Cafˇ, 745 N. Fourth Ave., said his coffee shop experiences have left him with a different impression.

"I usually get six or seven numbers (per day) in my tip jar," Davis said. "Rainbow Planet is one of the places that's open the latest on Fourth Avenue on weekends, so we get the occasional drunk person who's looking for the one-night stand."

Davis added that a perk of coffee shops is the relaxed atmosphere. He said many people come to do homework or to socialize, but whatever the reason to go, he said it's not often that he sees a lone coffee drinker.

"When you're drinking coffee, you're just talking to people," he said. "Usually you don't see people drinking coffee alone."