Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.
Issue link: http://freshcup.epubxp.com/i/232179
A VI VI AN MO Y bout three years ago, the owners of The Dolphin successful bookstore cafés, advice on how to set the right tone for Bookshop in Port Washington, N.Y., decided to move the your shop and further insight into this familiar union. store into a bigger space and build a café onto the premises. Since expanding, The Dolphin has developed into a beloved PLANNING AHEAD community marketplace: a social center known for its live music, book readings, local art, children's story hour, toy store, There are many reasons a bookstore café is a viable business specialty coffee, gluten-free baked goods, carefully sourced option. For one, diversifying your offerings can help bring in shelves of literature and warm, new customers with different family-friendly atmosphere. The tastes. But before you begin Dolphin made several smart stocking your new shop, it's moves to become such an idyllic important to determine the destination in Port Washington, kind of clientele you're hopthe first of which was deciding ing to attract. When Kathy to sell coffee and tea. and Gary Robson opened Red On a regular day in your coffee Lodge Books in Red Lodge, shop, you might find a mixture of Mont., customers were clampairs and solitary patrons enjoyoring for a café addition, but ing warm beverages—the latter espresso didn't seem like the likely accompanied by a newsparight fit. "Pretty much startper, laptop or a good book. Could ing the day we bought the it simply be that cappuccinos and store, people were telling us, Russian fiction complement each 'Put in a coffee shop, put in other? Or is there more to the a coffee shop!'" says co-owner timeless relationship between and author Gary Robson. literature and a desire to imbibe? "But I don't really like cofIn 1920s Paris, a golden age fee, and there's a really good for literary expatriates, cafés coffee shop down the street." were a creative haven for writEventually the Robsons did ers like Ernest Hemingway and decide that a café could boost F. Scott Fitzgerald. In Oxford, their business, but instead England, in the 1930s, the of investing in a coffee bar, Inklings—a literary circle that they began carefully sourcing included the writers C.S. Lewis a wide range of loose-leaf teas. and J. R. R. Tolkien—met at a The Red Lodge Tea Bar has local pub to discuss their latbeen an undeniable success. est works. Author J. K. Rowling The store's tea profits, includpenned much of the wildly ing bulk tea sales and the sale popular "Harry Potter" series of tea accessories, make up in several now-famous British more than a quarter of the cafés. Literature and café culture shop's revenue, and because have been inexplicably linked tea sales peak in off-hours for decades, perhaps centuries. (generally around noon and in The two beloved pastimes share the early evening), the tea bar APTLY TITLED: The Dolphin Bookshop & Café serves gluten-free panini named a romanticism, but more than after famous literary works. at Red Lodge doesn't have to that, cafés and bookstores each compete with the coffee shop offer a "third place" that provides a soothing escape from work down the street—in fact, they've even shared employees at times. and worries. Before they expanded their business, the Robsons weighed The café-bookstore model is not a new one, but more retailers their options. Because the town of Red Lodge attracts skiers in are reaping the benefits of this win-win combination. Whether the winter and summer sightseers passing through on their way you're thinking of adding literary offerings to an existing café to nearby Yellowstone National Park, the Robsons knew that with some extra space, or adding a coffee or tea bar to your book most of their customers would be tourists looking to linger, and shop, there are myriad reasons to blend the realm of bookselling tea seemed like the perfect accompaniment for relaxed book shop with the world of coffee and tea. Read on for testimonials from browsing. Tea is also a drink the Robsons enjoy, and one that continued on page 34 freshcup.com | January 2014 33