Small Business Tips

I’m Sue Zumberge I have Subtext: A Bookstore, that runs in partnership with Nina’s Coffee Café upstairs. We have been in business a week, we’ve been open for a week. My name is June Berkowitz and I own Nina’s Coffee Café in St Paul Minnesota.

We did take over a place where there was a bookstore before that so that we have recognition of there being a bookstore here. I decided the bookstore could not go away, that the community loved the bookstore here. I could not see the coffee shop without the bookstore since it had been such a part of who we have become. And so I approached Sue. Sue had been talking to me about potentially investing in putting in a new bookstore downstairs.

I realized however, having been in the book industry a little bit, I applied for a job years ago at McGavers Bookstore, so I understand how difficult it is as an independent bookstore to succeed and to make it, to be profitable.

So I proposed to her that I would pay, I would be the lease holder, and I would pay half of the rent and half of the utilities. So that is what I’m doing, I’m paying half the rent and half the utilities. When I first met with the owner of the coffee shop, June who wanted to have a bookstore here. I asked her, because she has another business, which is a dress business, if she was interested in moving that here instead.

She has always wanted to have a bookstore here. She approached the previous owner about having a bookstore here and convinced him to do it. So she is really attached to a partnership with a bookstore. So to have Nina’s involved was always part of it. And to have tables down here, where overflow, and people who just want perhaps more quiet atmosphere. There will not be music in terms of a PA system. So this is, you get this sort of choose and so far just the week we’ve been open you see people making that conscious choice. They might not want all the background music, they want a quiet place, we have tables to work at, we have WIFI down here.

So it is a real partnership program that we’ve put together. Everyone asks “what do you get out of it”. “What is it that you hope to get out of it”. And the thing that I hope to get out of it is number one; I get to go downstairs and be a part of the young adult section. Be able to teach a book club, teach a writing class. I was a public school teacher for 13 years. And prior to coming here my principal made me promise that in my lifetime I would teach reading and writing to students sometime down the line.

So, she’s been in here since we have added the bookstore and I have made good or I am trying to on my promise to her, since I’ve been gone for 7 years. So that’s my, that’s what I’m hoping to get out of it. Financially what am I hoping to get out of it? Well we have added some soft seating that the bookstore did not have. We are hoping to synergize the two spaces better. I have an idea of putting in a flooring that you can see downstairs and sort of see up but not really.

So I’m hoping to put that throughout the café sometime in the near future so that you can see down there. And that people can understand that we are actually cohesive and we are one. Other than that I’m just hoping to PR the space a little better, and to get people from here down there. We often times need extra seating and people are looking for a quieter meeting space. So I’m hoping that will become more like that than it was with Garrison’s bookstore. A bookstore in particular but really any mainstreet bricks and mortar shop becomes like a good neighborhood bar.

It’s where you go when you want to spend some time away from home, or away from work, it’s where you go after a date, it’s where you go just to sit and read. And that’s the type of atmosphere that it then behooves you, as a bookstore small bookstore owner, to create for people. Someplace where they’re comfortable. And that’s what we aim to do. And I don’t think that will go out of style. Well I’d always known that since she left Garrison’s bookstore that her love was this neighborhood and this particular space. And so I couldn’t think of anyone better than Sue to continue what had already been started.

In a different way though. People have commented numerous comments about how open it is and how inviting it is. And so already I think we are beginning to do what we had set out to do, and that is to synergize the two spaces. It’s so perfect to be able to do that. So just having the bar down there and the couches, and a more open environment for people to come in and feel like they can make it their livingroom. I think that, I think were already doing that and we haven’t even had our grand opening yet..

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