Kendra DuBois has purchased Front Street Books, Alpine, Tex., from longtime owner Anne Calaway. The Big Bend Sentinel reported that the new owner already feels at home in the bookstore, "partially since she's served as its bookkeeper for several years, but also because she's been browsing its shelves since her youth."
"We've been shopping at the bookstore since I was in high school," DuBois said. "It's definitely something that was a big part of my life, especially in discovering the outside world. Because I was born here and raised here, which is a really cool thing, but it can be pretty isolating. In finding Front Street Books, anything you wanted to read, you could find it."
When Calaway told DuBois that she wanted to step back from the operation, DuBois made an offer and, along with her husband, Jonathan DuBois, purchased the store. "One of the things that was very important to me was just to keep that feeling of the store going," she said. "I want other people to have that same experience, to have a place that, you know, if you want to read a certain book about caterpillars, if we don't have it, we can find it."
Calaway bought the store, which opened about three decades ago, in 2018 from Jean Hardy-Pittman. DuBois noted that Calaway "has done a wonderful job of keeping the store cool and interesting with all the literary events and people coming in. The authors that she brings in are really fun, and they have such varied interests and topics that they write on. So many of them are engaging and interesting to talk to."
For her part, Calaway said she sold the bookstore because it was time for a new generation of ownership: "I just didn't want to see it close, though. And when Kendra started working for me, within a week or two, I knew that she would be a good fit for this. The same staff will stay in place, and it will continue. It will only get better with Kendra."
In addition to expanded hours, the new additions will include some marketing initiatives, like free books for kids on their birthday and a loyalty program.