Nowhere Bookshop in San Antonio, Tex., opened to customers on Monday after a delay of well over a year.
My San Antonio reported that owner Jenny Lawson, general manager Elizabeth Jordan and their team are still requiring customers to wear masks but there are no limits to capacity. Nowhere's bar, however, remains closed and will not open until the vaccination rate in San Antonio is at least 80%. The store will continue to offer curbside pick-up and online sales.
"It's been a dream for so long, and now it's hard to believe it's really happening," Lawson said. "We've had such amazing support from the community, and now we can finally open the doors and say thank you in real life."
Jordan and Lawson had originally planned for an opening date of April 1, 2020. Jordan had submitted her opening inventory orders to her sales reps in early March and was starting to assemble a staff when things shut down. Their next tentative date was June 1, 2020, but after Texas reopened early and saw a spike in Covid cases, they pulled back once again. That same month the store started offering curbside pick-up and online shopping of the bookstore's entire inventory.
"It's been quite a journey, but we're all very excited," Jordan told My San Antonio. "The booksellers that we brought on are super enthusiastic, and I think it's going to be a great place for the community to hang out and talk about books. We'll eventually get to a place where people can hang out all day, but, for now, we're just thrilled to talk to people about books again."
Thanks to a robust online business and support from both local and international readers, the Nowhere team was able to be as conservative as they wanted to be when it came to deciding whether they should open to the public. Nowhere's online sales actually began in October 2019, when the store started selling branded merchandise and books signed by Lawson. The store also has a subscription club that had around 2,700 members as of November 2020.