Congratulations to White Whale Bookstore, Pittsburgh, Pa., which celebrated its fifth anniversary by expanding into a neighboring storefront in its building, doubling its space. The expanded store opened last Friday, October 15.
The new White Whale has two new storefront signs, new artwork (new window art and a new mural in the kids' section), more fixtures and seating, with a new coffee shop on the way. The store celebrated with sales, raffles and new merchandise. (See a preview of the new space by clicking on this video from Pittsburgh Now.)
Jill and Adlai Yeomans bought the East End Book Exchange in 2016 and relaunched it as White Whale Bookstore in October of that year. Yesterday, they posted on Facebook, in part: "The past two days kinda blew our minds a bit. We've been working toward this expansion for a long time now, but we couldn't predict what it would feel like to actually be in this bigger space. And it feels... legit! And awesome. And totally overwhelming. Like we almost started crying several times just taking it all in. But in a good way? So clearly we're still feeling a bit inarticulate and scrambled, but we just wanted to take a moment to say, you know, we appreciate you! Five years ago we bought all the books we could afford with the ten grand we'd saved for a house; we closed for two weeks and, with our parents, hauled all the books down to the basement so the painters could get in there, and then hauled them all back up afterward; and we had two tables and one very part-time employee--shout-out to Young Drew!--and we didn't have any publisher accounts and didn't know how to get them and didn't even have a business plan and yet... here we are. We did it. Are doing it. With you. And it feels pretty damn great."