Troubadour Booksellers will host a grand opening celebration on Saturday, October 19, in the Sardis Crossing shopping center at 1721 Sardis Rd. N., Suite 7C in Charlotte, N.C. Queen City Nerve reported that the new bookstore, owned by Scott Tynes-Miller, "is the result of a lifetime of dreaming followed by about five years of serious planning. A lover of literature since early in life... Miller has always harbored the notion of opening his own bookstore, but the time wasn't ever right and ultimately the dream seemed distant, unrealistic, a fantasy."
"It had been a dream for a long time, and after Covid I started really thinking about it and the more I thought about it and the more I talked about it the more real it seemed," Tynes-Miller said. "It was certainly inspiring to attend conferences and meet other people on the same journey. Maybe it wasn't a completely crazy idea. There are reasonable people out there doing this. And I'm one of them. This is really happening! People want books in their lives and bookshops in their communities. Bookshops can actually be at the center of communities."
In designing the layout of the store, the Troubadour team was intentional about creating a space that said "we want people to feel comfortable here." The space features overstuffed couches and chairs. Other choices include providing changing tables (with complimentary diaper-changing supplies) in the bathroom.
A parent himself (he and wife Robin Tynes-Miller, co-founder of Three Bone Theatre, have a daughter together), Tynes-Miller "knows how inhospitable businesses can be to those with children in tow. In addition to a full selection of books for adults across a variety of genres, Troubadour features a kids' nook where he plans to host storytimes."
Tynes-Miller said he hopes that Troubadour will continue the tradition of independent record stores and bookshops as community spaces: "If you create that really unique personable customer experience that you see in the best record stores and bookstores, where you know the people who are selling the books and you trust their taste, you don't have that experience anywhere else. That's community."