There's no bar, just a few replicators.
If Laurence watches for a few minutes, he'll see some instances of people joining existing groups. Either people are comfortable joining other groups or they were running late: it's not really possibly to distinguish the two.
Lots of people are reading, although most of them are either eating or continuing to read after finishing their plate. Everybody who's reading is doing so on a PADD, so it may not be recognizable to Laurence as reading.
Similarly, there are some people hanging out, not eating, but most of them have empty plates.