This weekend marked an anniversary milestone for a Tallahassee book store that's literally a "Mom and Pop" operation. At the same time, the venerable store is expanding its reach into the northeast part of the city.
Saturday was "free comics day" at the Bookshelf on South Monroe Street. And that meant lots of people wearing superhero costumes.
It was also the store's 35th anniversary. Tom Davis and his wife Mary have owned the place for 22 of those years.
“I mean, it’s pretty amazing,” Davis said as he rang up a long line of customers. “The last few years have been a little tougher.”
But things have been picking up. So Tom recently decided to open a second Bookshelf somewhere to the north of the present store.
“There’s nothing north of town,” he noted. “There hasn’t been a store in Killearn in 20 years. So I started looking north around the first of the year thinking I’d probably end up on North Monroe because Killearn was too expensive. And this (store location) just dropped open and it’s such a blessing.”
The prospective new store was the right square footage at the right price and in definitely the right place.
“It’s a great location right on Killearn Center Boulevard,” Davis said. You come out of Hobby Lobby’s parking lot and you can’t help but see us. Bob Sauls my sign guy gave me another great big yellow sign. My son’s going to run it.”
That would be son, Jeffrey Davis.
“I’ll be living above the store,” he said, “very, very old general store-esque. And I can roll out of bed and start the day. It’s going to be fun.”
Helping to build the business, Jeffrey Davis says, are the current flood of superhero movies, like the latest Avengers' blockbuster, "Age of Ultron."
“With comic book movies taking off, you have major starts like Robert Downey, Jr. who’s just dying to do stuff like that. It’s more mainstream. It’s not the cave-dwelling, hush-hush, ‘I collect comics’ kind of fan,” he smiled.
That, David said, is creating a whole new crop of fans for old-fashioned comic books.
“There’s more kids and women,” he explained. “The demographics have changed, too. There are a lot of strong female characters.”
The Killearn Center Boulevard Bookshelf holds a soft opening this Wednesday (5/6/15). The official grand opening happens Saturday, May 16th.
