All Good Books hosted its grand opening celebration yesterday, March 2, at 734 Harden St. in the Five Points neighborhood of Columbia, S.C. The State reported that the team of owners behind the bookstore, which offers new titles along with coffee, beer and wine, "used crowd-funding, via a Kickstarter campaign, to help fund renovations for the space at 734 Harden. The effort was a roaring success: All Good Books had a goal of $60,000 for the Kickstarter, and it ended up receiving nearly $78,000 in donations to get the 3,000-square-foot shop up and running."
Clint Wallace, a tax law professor at the University of South Carolina and a co-owner of All Good Books, said the overwhelming initial support the store received via crowd-funding confirmed his desire for a large, independent bookstore downtown.
"I think it was a great proof-of-concept that people are really excited about and want an independent bookstore in Columbia," Wallace observed. "We set a very ambitious goal with the Kickstarter, but it was a goal that would raise money for us to invest in the best version of an independent bookstore with a lot of shelves that we could fill with a lot of cool books."
The store, "which features a clean, colorful aesthetic set off by gleaming hardwood floors, also has a large sitting space in the back, and a children's section and reading area in the middle of the store," the State wrote. There is a small cafe in the space.
"We are ready to go with all of that," Wallace said. "We have been practicing our barista skills. Really, it's a pretty narrow menu in terms of the coffee side. It's really the things we like to drink while we are reading."
All Good Books co-owner Ben Adams has experience in the bookselling world. He opened Odd Bird Books in the Main Street Arcade Mall about three years ago, then closed that 300-square-foot shop earlier this year and joined forces with All Good Books. "We are scaling up in a big way," he said. "It's a different world. I got a lot of experience out of Odd Bird, but this is a completely different animal. This is so much different (than the smaller Odd Bird space) in so many ways."