Dave’s Olde Book Shop turns the page…
Bookstores that only traffic in new items are great if we’re in search of a current title, but secondhand bookstores fulfill a niche that’s no less vital, and quite often more rewarding, for the simple fact that one may find an out-of-print gem with a bit of history tucked away inside its covers.
However, in the South Bay there just aren’t many secondhand bookstores remaining, and in the Beach Cities proper it all comes down to Dave’s Olde Book Shop on Artesia in Redondo Beach. But Dave has moved on, and the premises have been taken over by Ben Gunter. Ben’s plan is to increase the store’s presence and visibility, and this story’s about how he intends to do that.
Rejuvenation
“The shop’s been in operation since 1994,” Ben says, “first in Manhattan Beach and here at this location since 1998. We just reopened from the COVID closure on Sept. 15, and we’ve been operating five days a week since then, Tuesday through Saturday. We’re hoping to return to seven-day hours within the next month or so.”
Why did Dave decide to put the store up for sale?
“It was already Dave’s retirement business,” Ben replies. “When the COVID closure happened he had already been thinking of selling the shop. It was the right time for him to get out of the business and it was the right time for me to get in the business as well. That was back this summer.”
“A lot of people assume that a guy buying a bookstore had a lifelong dream of owning a bookstore. That’s actually not the case for me. I was looking for a business that needed help to reopen and thrive post-COVID, and I knew this shop could make it because it had been a community staple for decades. I had a few years experience in books and in small business management under my belt, so I was pretty confident I could do the job. I bought it the day after the story ran that it was for sale.”
Will Dave’s Olde Book Shop become Ben’s New Book Shop?
“We want to keep the name of the store for at least a year,” Ben replies. “Dave is still advising and helping. He comes in on most Saturdays to visit with old customers, and he cultivated a lot of the collection in here. Because it’s been such a community institution we have no burning desire to change the name immediately.”
Some people may be of the opinion that the era of brick-and-mortar bookstores is behind us. Well, they definitely are fewer. But as Karina Bass sees it, and she’s been on Dave’s payroll for seven years, books and bookstores aren’t going to vanish:
“There’s something to be said for actually holding a book in your hand,” she says, “and I don’t think that will ever go out of style. Also, chain bookstores don’t have what we have. They may have specifically what you want, or you can go on Amazon and order it and it will come right to your door. Here, this is a special place where you can come in, slow down, check out the books, and you’re going to find things on the shelf that you may not have even thought about.”
“One of the things that is special about the store,” says designer Rodrigo Barreto, “is there are books that are out of print, that you will not find in any other place.”
“Part of the fun,” Karina adds, “is finding old books, because so many books are donated to the shop. There’s such an eclectic mix, and there’s really no rhyme or reason to what we have or when we have it. We are like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to find. And the great thing is that in a few months it’s going to be completely different. In that sense, we don’t compete on the same level as the big box stores. We’re a totally different monster.”
Branching out
“This is one of the last survivors in the used and rare book industry in the South Bay,” Ben points out, “and if you were to travel from Sherman Oaks down the 405 to Long Beach you wouldn’t pass any used book stores until this one; and there’s a couple in Torrance as well (Sandpiper and Book Again). So we’re in a fortunate little cluster of three different shops that all specialize in used and rare books.
“Also,” Ben continues, “the thing that appealed to me about taking over this bookstore was the community aspect. We want to keep operating it in largely the same way that it had been operating, but also make it more communal. To that end we’ve done a few things with re-configuring, reorganizing, and creating a more inviting environment.”
“In the future,” says Ben, “I want to have a little place, a table where people can sit down and browse. We did expand our classics section, which had been two or three cases, to five. We expanded the young adults section, expanded the children’s section, and expanded the sci-fi as well. We’re trying to do that without removing things that people are still buying.” Another strategy is not to have so many copies of the same book on the shelves at the same time.
Reiterating Karina’s words, Ben emphasizes that “We want to make this the kind of place where someone can come in and browse and stumble upon a book that they otherwise would not have ever found. I’ve mentioned online sales. That’s something we’ll be venturing into, something that we have to do in order to stay afloat and be profitable. If we have another round of closures for the Coronavirus we want to be able to still serve the community. One of the ways that we envision doing that is making sure that people are still able to shop this used bookstore online from their home and have things delivered curbside.”
Something else that helps a bookstore like Dave’s to survive are the books that people bring by and simply donate That can account for about 95 percent of the store’s inventory. “We don’t sell anything brand new,” Ben says, “but because people bring us a good supply of recent and popular items, we are able to actually keep up with people’s demands.”
Another forthcoming change or innovation has to do with going out on the road. Ben explains this as well: “We want to have a bookmobile that can travel around and do pop-up events—book sales along Hermosa and Manhattan Beach, the idea with that being that we would have a charitable arm of the store. So, for every book sold, we would donate a book in a community that needs books. That’s something that we’ll be getting to as soon as we can, probably after the holiday season.”
When people donate items, one imagines that the condition of the books varies widely. What’s going to happen with the ones that aren’t in good shape?
“Currently we partner with a non-profit,” Ben replies, “that takes anything that’s unsaleable from us and they redistribute it to different areas where it might be in need; and we’re going to continue that until we can start doing it ourselves. But no book that comes in is ever disposed of. We want to make sure that people know when they bring in a box of assorted books that they’ll all get a home, whether that home is here in the shop or a school library, or even a hospital. The only thing that we would toss out, for example, is a coloring book that is all colored up.”
The percentage of inventory due to donations is a little surprising when one considers that in days gone by an inventory was replenished when the owner or the employees frequented garage sales and estate sales, and often bought or traded for books with their clientele. Dave’s used to issue credit slips in exchange for books, but that was discontinued some time ago. However, existing credit slips will be honored through the end of the year.
The other thing that should be mentioned, which is probably obvious but merits an aside nonetheless, is that authors are not compensated when their books are purchased from a secondhand bookstore. Presumably they received their usual pittance when the book was first published, but for those who don’t mind paying a little more for current work, knowing that the author will benefit, Pages in Manhattan Beach and Barnes & Noble remain viable alternatives.
Apart from Dave’s, Sandpiper, and Book Again, one can find discounted books at Book-Off, located in Torrance, Gardena, Lakewood, and then to the south in Westminster and Costa Mesa. But Book-Off can be rather picky in what they’ll accept (they’ll pay cash): anything that’s yellowed or beat-up gets a free ride to the dumpster. Which Dave’s, to its credit, doesn’t do.
“We have more vintage and antique books and not so much of the new,” Karina says. “That’s something I’m hoping we can get across. We have books for everybody, every reading level and every genre.”
So what is it they specialize in?
“We have a very strong collection of mystery novels, science-fiction novels, and vintage paperback novels,” says Ben. “Those are our biggest strengths. We also have a great selection of leatherbound classics as well as some rare items.”
As for discerning what’s a valuable book and what isn’t…
“When we all combine forces,” Ben continues, referring to his staff, “and apply our individual backgrounds and our knowledge of different areas, we are able to figure out what’s a valuable item, what deserves to be in the display case versus what doesn’t. A lot of times it does require research and scrutiny to get there, but between the five or six of us we’re always able to arrive at an answer.”
The important thing for book lovers to know is that the shop is again doing business.
“We were closed for quite a bit of time,” says assistant Brian Hernandez, “but once we opened up the store a lot of people would come in and say, ‘I’m glad you guys are open,’ ‘I’m glad this isn’t gone; it’s been a staple for so long,’ and I can genuinely see the want to keep this in the community by the people.”
“Myself, I love hanging out at bookstores,” says Rodrigo. “They’re a symbol of knowledge and it’s always nice to see that people appreciate the bookstore being open, especially now that we have so much time on our hands.”
Ben finds these words reassuring. “I could have kept this place closed until I had it exactly as I wanted it,” he says. “But you would hear people as they walked by, when we were in here working and reorganizing: ‘When are you going to open? We need you back!’ So we couldn’t keep it closed—we had to open it up, just to make sure that we were actually filling the void that was left when the city closed the stores.” He pauses and continues. “It’s always nice to feel like you’re filling an important need in a community. We’re all fortunate to be part of that.”
Dave’s Olde Book Shop is located at 2123 Artesia Blvd, Redondo Beach. Call (310) 793-1300 or go to davesbooks.org. ER
