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| The future home of All Good Books | |
All Good Books, a bookstore, cafe and bar coming to Columbia, S.C., next year, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to help open the bookstore, the State reported. The store's owners are looking to raise $60,000, and so far have raised more than $32,000 from more than 250 backers.
The store will sell new books for all ages, with a focus on local and regional authors, and will reside in a roughly 3,000-square-foot space that once housed a bar. The cafe part of the business will sell coffee, tea, beer, wine and an assortment of food, and the back of the bookstore will be a space called the Reading Room, where customers will be able to relax with their drinks and where the bookstore team will host events like author readings and book clubs.
The owners of All Good Books include Clint Wallace, a tax law professor at the University of South Carolina, and Benjamin Adams, the owner of a 300-square-foot bookstore in Columbia called Odd Bird Books. That shop will close early next year as Adams transitions to running All Good Books.
"Three years ago I opened my little space and that was kind of the most I could do with the resources I had," Adams told the State. "I always assumed I would grow. I didn't think I wanted to stay in a 300-square-foot space forever."
He explained that he and Wallace have known each other for a number of years and frequently talked about opening a bigger bookstore and cafe. At first abstract and hypothetical, those conversations gradually became more serious over time, and about a year ago, "things really fell into place, and these fun, casual conversations got real momentum."
"We want this to be a place where people can come and hang out and have a nice, real, human experience reading and thinking about things they want to read and sharing that adventure with their friends and family," Wallace said.
He noted that while the Five Points area has mostly been associated with nightlife and bars, more restaurants and daytime businesses have been opening, and he and Adams "think this is the perfect spot for a bookstore that will have daytime shopping elements and also some evening events."