WORCESTER—Owners of independent bookstores in Worcester are proving that even in a digital age, their businesses still attract avid readers and add to the city’s cultural life.
And while their establishments are inherently unique with different focuses, there is something on which they all agree: Worcester needs them.
Hutch and Jo Truesdell of Tidepool Bookshop on Chandler Street and Nicole DiCello of Bedlam Book Café on Green Street did not necessarily see themselves as bookstore owners before a few years ago, each coming from other realms.
“People ask if it was always a dream of ours,” said Jo, “and the answer is ‘no.’” The couple retired in 2017; she was a teacher at Bancroft School and he worked in land acquisition and wildlife stewardship at Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.
But the duo noticed a lack of independent bookstores in Worcester where once they had a presence. The rise of chains and online sales was expected to supersede bookstores entirely, which ultimately was not the case.
“For a city of this size with all its colleges, it made sense,” Jo said. “The community deserves and needs it.”
DiCello, who left the corporate world after 20 years in medical software, said she was ready for a career change but did not know necessarily the direction she would take.
“I wanted to try something radically different,” DiCello said. Noting she was “completely smitten” with independent bookstores while a college student in New York, she teamed up with Patrick Warner, who had a vast background in the industry.
“We’re promoting a culture that we wholeheartedly believe in,” DiCello said, “one of knowledge, awareness and equal access.”
Bedlam Book Café opened first—in 2018—while Tidepool Bookshop followed with a “soft launch” in 2020 after a few years of preparation.
“People with grey hair move slowly,” Jo joked, “so it took time.”
Hutch explained the couple visited 60 bookstores and attended a Bookstore Bootcamp in Florida under the American Booksellers Association umbrella. There, with 20 people representing 12 establishments, they reviewed all aspects of the business, “from soup to nuts,” according to Jo.
Then, the COVID pandemic hit in 2020 and impacted their stores in different ways.
DiCello recalled losing all employees while keeping the business open, running the store as well as its café, featuring a menu of organic smoothies and quick bites to eat. The cafe, she said, is designed to provide a “vibe and service to go along with the culture.”
“I had to start over from scratch,” she said, which included expanding her online presence. Although DiCello said selling from the website is “kind of cool,” resulting in shipments to places such as Japan, Canada and England, it was never her intention to sell solely online.
“I want to provide for the community. Life needs to be experiential…not found online.”
At Tidepool Bookshop, the owners used the pandemic to learn the online part of the business, grow its collection, and get to know what people wanted.
“It was not difficult because we had nothing to compare it to,’’ said Jo. “We were open. There were never 10 people in the store at once so it was okay.”
Root and Press, a café and independent bookstore co-owned by Rich Collins and Nicole Cote, also adapted during the pandemic by processing orders at home and hand-delivering titles for a few months.
Collins explained the business does not have an independent online commerce site but continues to promote bookshop.org and libro.fm, two organizations that share their proceeds with indie bookstores for physical books and audiobooks, respectively.
The café and store only survived because of the “oversized generosity” of the community, Collins said, with people buying extra meals and purchasing gifts and gift cards months in advance of the holidays.
Collins said even with a vast food menu, books will always be an “integral” part of the business, regardless of the profits they generate compared to the café and kitchen.
Having a bookstore alongside a restaurant “provides ambiance, allows us to host events outside the purview of traditional restaurants, [and] it gives space for kids to learn and for adults to browse and pick up something new,” Collins said.
Recently re-opened on Shrewsbury Street, he said the former location on Chandler Street saw the restaurant overgrow on the books. Sales plummeted.
“We honestly didn’t even feel like a bookstore at the end because it was so difficult to browse, we were limited in our selections, and the kid’s area was so high-traffic,” he noted.
They picked a new location where people could browse like at a traditional bookstore but also maintain a “small-store charm.” The Shrewsbury Street site means book offerings have tripled, both “making old categories deeper and developing space for new genres.”
Gift and retail sections also expanded.
The independent booksellers believe they can co-exist for the good of the city.
“I think it would be a depressing landscape for a city the size of Worcester only to have one bookshop. I wish there were a Tidepool or a Bedlam in every neighborhood,” Collins said.
“The more the better, honestly,” agreed DiCello, noting Bedlam sells used, rare, and out-of-print books while the other two stores focus on new titles. In addition, the café at her business is secondary to book sales.
“There’s not one way to do it,” she said. “Culture is wide-ranging within bookstores and can be great for the city, giving a lot of choice.”
Book club meetings, special events, and in-person and online programs are ways Jo and Huck Truesdell continue to boost the bookstore’s popularity. From the start, they embraced a philosophy of giving readers what they want.
When they first opened, Jo recalled a customer from Princeton saying, “I’m looking around. Half these books I’ve read and the other half I can’t wait to read.”
The first couple of years, they saw people buying books that reflected the times on topics such as pandemics, race, democracy, and government, but more recently are witnessing an upward trend in fiction sales.
In addition to fiction, bestsellers at Bedlam include philosophy, poetry and history.
The owners said keeping prices affordable as well as creating a welcoming, comfortable atmosphere for children and adults, are priorities.
“So many people say, `I like the feel of a book, the smell of it,” Jo said. “For the most part, that is how people read.”
“At one time, it was thought it was going to be the end of printed books,” Huck added. “That’s not what we see at all.”
“There is knowledge to be found out there,” DiCello said. “It doesn’t go out of style. Whether it is trendy with the times or uncovering the timeliness of a certain amount of information…It is vital we provide access for a diverse population.”
Susan Gonsalves is currently editor-in-chief of a mental health trade journal and a freelance writer/editor specializing in education, medical/health and business. She previously worked at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and has contributed to publications at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and College of the Holy Cross. At the Worcester Telegram, she covered the town of Leicester and wrote for Business Matters. She can be reached at smgedit@comcast.net
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