Bar Bookstores Are a Hit Genre in the Bay Area

"I found a bookstore-bar in Santa Cruz co-owned by former UC Santa Cruz professor Andrew Sivak and chef Jessica LoPrete with a three-pronged focus on food, wine, and a highly curated selection of used books—mostly fiction, poetry, philosophy, and the occult. A sofa and armchairs invite customers to linger over wine to a 1960s–’70s soundtrack (there’s no WiFi), and the wine list leans to natural and small organic producers from places like Slovenia, the Republic of Georgia, and Trentino-Alto Adige with eight wines by the glass; the wine club sends two bottles a month paired with literary and food pairings and gives 10% off bottles or books. The shop has a cheeky FAQ on its site (e.g., “Is it OK to sleep with someone who doesn’t read books?”: “No.”) and explicitly curated sections—ask for travel books and you may be told the “People and Places” shelf is “only for books that subvert the Colonial eye,” in bookseller Nick Pillsbury’s words. Private group dinners can be held in the Rare Books room (named as an allusion to Euripides and William Burroughs’ “Kill the Badger,” hence the badger logo on the door)." - Sharon McDonnell