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 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: