Two St. Petersburg coffeehouses show that friendships can thrive in any environment, as long as there's a cup of joe.

By John Sutter

ALSO IN THIS SERIES * The Great Coffee Debate: The GlobeArthur James "A.J." Wilkerson Jr. sits at his table on a recent Sunday decked out in flowered swim trunks and a wrinkled, unbuttoned shirt, his sandy hair pulled back in a ponytail.

His family is with him, but there's always room for extra company.

"Pull up a chair," he says to a friend. "Pretend you know somebody."

A.J.'s not on the 1967 sailboat he calls home.

He's at Starbucks.

When Starbucks stepped onto the St. Petersburg coffee scene about six years ago, some area residents worried the megachain would scald this sleepy town with its corporate brew, maybe dilute the town's identity or overwhelm local business.

But community can sprout up in the most corporate of places.

A buzzing network of coffee-loving friends gathers almost daily at the Starbucks at 900 Fourth St. N. They're addicted to the coffees, the lattes, the "decaf, nonfat, no-whip mocha."

And addicted to each other.

Joanne "JoJo" Johnson -- that's her favorite drink described above -- says Starbucks coffee is "an opiate of some sort." But she could brew that at home in her Starbucks brand coffeemaker.

"The people definitely sucked me in," she says. "I look forward to coming here in the morning and seeing familiar faces."

A.J., his wife, Rachel, son, Arthur, and dog, Brittney, have achieved coffeehouse celebrity status. When A.J. and Rachel married three weeks ago on the beach, they invited family and Starbucks friends, a phenomenon Rachel say