So today Kim and I went and checked out Broad Street Books in Ghent, but before I get into that I think something should be made clear:
As much as I oppose big business retail stores, I have to admit, I’ve always had a thing for Barnes & Noble. The idea of a giantic bookstore that is open until 11PM (sometimes later) and has coffee and couches is just a pretty badass idea. My biggest complaint with Barnes & Noble has nothing to do with them being a big corporation or anything like that, it’s just that I despise Starbucks (and even then, not really because they too are a jackass corporation, but because their coffee tastes like ape balls).
So we go into this place, and it looks nice. Huge comfy chairs, a big children’s book section with a cool play area with a big cardboard chess board. Nice stuff, and more importantly, evidence that someone made an effort to create an environment you don’t see often in the modern day bookbox stores like Barnes & Noble. I think the building may have been a diner at one point, judging from the white, hexagonally tiled floor and the circular rust stains running in a row against the counter leaving evidence of chrome diner stools. My other guess is that it was the eatery section of the Rose’s that used to occupy that whole row businesses and the realtor segmented the building when they resold it. They also had some sappy Hallmark-worthy quotations etched on the walls preaching the gospel of reading… in a bookstore.… where people who already know how to read go to buy their books.…
So Kim and I look around and we’re kind of impressed with the place. In my head I’m thinking, “Well this is closer to home, and in the proximity of like five coffee sources, so even if I have to get my corporate coffee from Panera Bread, next door, instead of an in house Starbucks, I’m good.” There are still two Starbuckses in walking distance, as well as my first choice of Elliot’s Fairgrounds and lord know what else. I will say that Broad Street has a considerable book inventory for a small shop, in fact, I think they easily blow away Prince Books in just the magnitude of what they have available on the shelves.
As we’re leaving I go and grab a business card at the counter and end up talking a bit with the nerdy couple behind the counter. I say it’s our first time in and they make those weird tupperware-party-lady noises that, I guess, mean “thanks!” Once they start talking it sounds like everyone’s at a tea party and doing Monty Python voices or somethng, but the one question I had to have answered, the one that would keep me out of Barnes & Noble forever was on the tip of my tounge: