BWM's Blog

Sunday Afternoon, Blackwell's and Boston Tea Party

I have loved visiting bookshops since I was a teenager when I stood for ages before the shelves of blue penguins in the Dundee University bookshop, wondering which to buy. My bookshop experiences were enhanced considerably by the Printers Ink bookshop in Palo Alto, which, at the time I first discovered it, had a rather seedy coffee bar within. That it was seedy didn't matter, because it was a quiet, intimate place, with unusual people and served good coffee.

The Palo Alto shop had a sister establishment in Mountain view that also had a coffee shop, but located upstairs on a balcony. I once waited to be served there by an exceedingly good looking Californian girl. She was not tall, but of oriental ancestry and with short, (dyed?) blonde hair. Serving my coffee was delayed while she described in intimate detail to an earlier customer how an elderly tatoo artist had first shaved her then applied a red rose. Apparently, once her hair had grown back, the end of the stem was no longer visible and the rose seemed to grow out of dark undergrowth.

In the Mountain View shop one could sit at the edge of the balcony drinking coffee and observe folks browse the books downstairs. To my mind, the Palo Alto shop was spoiled when the dance school next door to it closed. The bookshop was extended and the seedy old coffee bar replaced by a trendy new one with much chrome and marble topped round tables. It became livelier and trendier and no doubt more profitable, but, unlike Boston Tea Party, it was no longer a restful place to drink coffee and read or chat to my son David as he drank an Italian soda.

Boston Tea Party is currently my favourite coffee shop. It is to be found near the top of Park Street, Bristol. Ask for a large lattelf you go there. The staff pride themselves on making pictures and patterns in the foam of the coffee.

The interior has plain wooden tables whose scratched tops are painted red. There are three sofas. The old ones came close to causing injury and have been replaced, but here even the new looks old. The only chrome is on the well used expresso machines. This is a place where one can put ones feet up and read the Sunday papers in comfort. On a wet day it is heaving and full of people; richer students from the University, staff and middle aged folks like me who enjoy the atmosphere as well as the coffee, but on a hot summers day like today, the upstairs room is quiet and most folks are in the garden, visible through the window at the back.

I still like to find time on a Sunday afternoon to browse around a good bookshop and then go for coffee. I feel comforable in Blackwells, conveniently located only a few doors up Park Street from Boston Tea Party. It is not quite a quaint old shop, split amongst many levels. The levels most visible levels from the street have recently been redecorated in the light, modern bookshop style, perhaps in response to the new Borders bookshop that has opened nearby.

One of Blackwells levels is occupied by a coffee shop. It is very shiny with lots of chrome and metal. I have never seen it busy. I don't use it and can't imagine it being profitable. Its style just does not fit its host. Waterstones in Dundee does it right. There, like in Mountain View, the coffee shop is upstairs on a balcony permitting coffee drinkers to observe the bookshop below. There are newspapers and publishers review copies of books freely available for customers to read. It is dark with soft arm chairs and delightful.

The nearby Borders is bigger, and since it occupies only two floors, looks it. It may be a clue that that upper floor has room for another StarBucks and a stationers as well as the entire collection of non-fiction, CD's, DVD's and videos. On asking where the biorgraphy section could be found, I was told they did not have one; biographies are spread around in the appropriate category. I wonder where one would find da Vinci. Compare that to Waterstones in Picadily, London, where, with a bookcase for each letter of the alphabet, the biography section occupies half (?) the ground floor. Sadly, many of my colleagues think it is superior, which leads me to wonder whether Blackwells will survive. A StarBucks coffee shop opened across the street from Boston Tea Party, a business strategy I have been told is common for that company. Up the street there is a Subway sandwich shop. The main facade of the university building (complete with nearby student prank) reflects in its window. American business has moved in.

There are now three good bookshops in close proximity; perhaps they will attract more business to the area and all will do well. I first encountered the combination of bookshop and coffee shop in the US, but perhaps unfairly, I'm still rootin' for Blackwell's and the Brits.

Posted by bwm at August 10, 2003 01:39 PM