Following a successful crowdfunding campaign that brought in more than $75,000, the owners of BEM Books & More plans to open a bricks-and-mortar store in Brooklyn, N.Y., by the end of 2024, Essence reported.
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Gabrielle and Danielle Davenport |
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Co-owners and sisters Danielle and Gabrielle Davenport have found a 2,500-square-foot space in Brooklyn's Bed-Stuy neighborhood, which will house the bookstore, a test kitchen, a cafe/wine bar, and a reading room/archive. While they did not specify an address, they did note that the space is on a main thoroughfare and has a number of Black-owned businesses as neighbors.
Along with books, the Davenports will carry food-related products from Black-owned brands, and they'll host literary and culinary events, including cooking classes, chef residencies, and author readings.
The Davenports founded BEM Books & More as an online bookstore in 2021. It focuses on cookbooks and food-related fiction and nonfiction, all by Black authors. They named the bookstore after the initials of their grandmothers.
Since opening, they've sold books online and done pop-up appearances that have run in length from six weeks to six months, and each pop-up has emphasized "how important it is for the mission and sustainability of our business to have a space of our own to shop up for our community in a consistent and continuous way."