"When Adam Bernales and Denice Diaz started Seite Books in a little storefront in East Los Angeles, a lot of people thought their taste in books was too highbrow," Jacket Copy noted in showcasing the bookshop that opened in 2010 and "seemed incongruous for a small Rowan Avenue storefront next to a transit station, where the booksellers shared space with the dresses being sold by Diaz's mom."
Bernales and Diaz persisted, however, and Seite Books has become "the bookstore East Los Angeles didn't know it needed: an oasis of literary culture in a book-starved corner of L.A. that's never had a Dutton's or a Borders or a Barnes & Noble," Jacket Copy wrote.
Diaz said Seite's annual sales have grown steadily, and it was able to resist suggestions by a few customers insisting they sell books for a dollar or less "because it seems to us you should pay more for a book than for a candy bar." Eventually, it began selling new books as well.
"Every customer who's come here has shaped the flavor of the store," Bernales said.
