Elements to organize the third place that promotes sustainable relationships in service businesses

•The third place develops close relationships between service providers and receivers.•There are various kinds of third places which can be classified to four categories.•We found five fundamental elements to organize the third place.•Service business can restore many things lost in sheared realms.•These five elements effectively promotes service business sustainability.

Modernization, urbanization, and digitalization have made human lifestyles and culture increasingly more individualized. Common activities and mutual support by relatives and neighbors have been divided into individual ones and replaced by servitized economies, which have diluted social relationships. External services have satisfied functional needs, but have had little to do with sensitive human issues. That is why service communities and the third place have been recently focused on in service businesses.This paper proposes how the service business model can establish sustainable relationships between service providers and service receivers by introducing the third place into the service model.The third place is classified into four types, i.e., communication, private space, meaning focus, and knowledge focus types. We found five factors to effectively organize the third place through case studies i.e., shared space, shared objectives, shared time, self affirmation, and economic sustainability.These factors should promote a sustainable service model, which is quite material and effectively establishes the third place in communities to develop sustainable businesses.