lowquality.net

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 the whole row of businesses that currently occupy the building and the realtor segmented them 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:

“What are your hours?” I asked.

“9am-7pm on Monday through Wednesday and on Thursday Friday and Saturday we’re open until 9pm.” The gentleman responded. I knew it, I didn’t expect much more than that.

“Ah.. do you have any plans to be open later?” I asked this, assuming that they knew that I understood that they are a relatively new shop and maybe business just wasn’t jumping out of the pan for them yet. Maybe, given the opportunity, their whole plan was to go up against the big guys. That, in my mind, is why people would have the balls to open an indie book store these days, the belief that you can do it better than the big business corporate assholes that run this country. So anyway…

“Well, on Thursday Friday and Saturday we’re open until 9pm.” and he said it with that irritating, snobbish, stereotypical bookstore owner tone, like I totally missed it the first time around.

“Yeah, but will you ever be open any later?”

And now, finally, the lady working in the background, who I know assume to be one of the propietors, chimed in: “I’d be open later if there was a market for it.”

I could have continued the conversation, but I know it would have ended up with me being thrown out and Kim having to buy damaged copies of “Shopaholic” in it’s hardcover edition. If there was no market for a bookstore to be open late, B&N and Borders certainly wouldn’t waste the millions and millions of dollars it takes to keep their stores running across the country. Wake the hell up, Norfolk! You want people to treat you like a real city? Then start acting like a real city. Real cities don’t shut down at 9pm. You can build as many million dollar condos as you like, but the bottom line is that the nightlife in Norfolk begins and ends with drinking over-priced drinks in wanna-be clubs and going to IHOP.

It was right at this moment that I realized all independent business owners are not the same, and especially in Ghent. These businesses are not in it to “stick it the man.” They are in it so that they can go to parties that they were previously not invited to and tell everyone they own a “small book shop.” In truth, being a business owner to them is not about making a point against the status quo, it’s not about financial survival, it’s not even about making an investment flourish with the intention selling it for profit. It’s about bragging rights and flaunting some elitist badge of honor that you can parade around in like a Hummer H2.

When I first visited San Francisco, I was amazed at how many small coffee shops could coexist in the same neighborhoods– even, in some cases, sharing a common wall! The reason they can make it work is that, in the Bay Area, everyone is against major corporations (unless they own one). So small businesses, even coffee shops, stick together… they help each other out and they create something that is largely lacking in Hampton Roads: community. The flip side of the Bay Area is that they protest every damned thing that walks down the street. Thats California.

In Virginia we have a lot to learn. The bottom line is that when you open a business you have to know what you are up against. What will make me want to go to this hole in the wall store if there’s a bigger, better place who will sell me what I want for less money and at whatever time I choose to go there? One of the advantages of going up against a chain store is that they have already invested a ton of money in finding out what works and what doesn’t work to make money. All you have to do is pay attention.

The other issue, that of being a snotty asshole, really hurts you when people realize you’re the owner. I know that if I go to Border’s and some doushbag with neck tattoos gives me lip that there’s 20 other people at the store I can talk to. I probably won’t go into Broad Street Books again because those people were totally horrible.

But I can understand, that when you become self-employed you have the luxury of being able to set your limits and maybe you just don’t want to be open that late, and that’s fine with me. I did similar things when I was teaching full time, but don’t give me this “there’s no market for it” when I can roll into Barnes & Noble on a Friday night and it’s packed with coffee swilling bibliophiles on Powerbooks and creepy dudes cruising for chicks in the Romance section (my favorite line: “How would you like to turn that book into non-fiction?”

Sometimes, I think they should build a wall around Ghent, fill it with water and let sit for a few months. Then drain it and give it to the nice people in Port Norfolk. Everyone knows that Portsmouth is the new Norfolk anyway.