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Way back in the day, this was ultimately why my high school friends and I went from frequenting Barnes & Noble to frequenting Borders. B&N had the overall nicer
by mumblemumble 7y ago
Way back in the day, this was ultimately why my high school friends and I went from frequenting Barnes & Noble to frequenting Borders. B&N had the overall nicer environment and a better book selection, but Borders had a halfway decent café. That made going there a better social event: We could grab a table and some coffees and sit around and chat. Anyone who wanted to spend a while browsing the books could do so without feeling hurried by the people who didn't, because they had somewhere reasonable to sit and hang out.
It's a bit like that with my favorite indie bookstore, too. It's a haul for me to get there, but still occasionally schlep myself over there when I have an afternoon to myself, because I enjoy the experience of buying a new book and then sitting down to start reading it over a glass of wine in their café.
B&N could be that now, but they would need to spruce up their café. As it is, it's like an airport coffee shop, only even more unpleasant.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y agoI'm not sure this model scales if you have all the rental, staffing, and admin costs of a giant bookshop next to your cafe. Indies can make it work because their costs are relatively small, and if they're good local people get attached to them. Waterstones in the UK can just about make it work, because they choose not-too-large middle class locations and design their interiors to match. B&N don't seem to have understood the appeal of a cozy vibe. The stores always feel like a book warehouse that's trying to impress you with its sheer scale rather than somewhere you can chill on your own terms. So it's hard to imagine the same model working for a big corporate paying for big box/mall floor space.