Last April, the truly tragic occurred at Flintridge Books & Coffee. After the brakes went out, a driver lost control of his truck. The rampaging truck caused the death of a father and his daugter and only came to a stop after barrelling through the front window of the store. The truck wiped out at least the front one-third of Flintridge Books & Cafe. It lost one-half of its stock. At the time, no one was in that portion of the store, so additional deaths did not occur in the store. It was a devastating experience.
Flintridge Books & Coffee quickly announced its plans to rebuild and return. During construction, books were sold out of a trailer in the parking lot. Finally, on August 1st Flintridge Books & Coffee celebrated its grand re-opening in the re-constructed space.
The day started with firemen returning to the store for a much more joyous reason. Rather than responding to an emergency, this time they read to the children during story hour. We dropped by in the evening for the music and to see the new building. It is beautiful, the footprint is basically the same and some of the sections have moved around, but Flintridge Books & Coffee is still a full service bookstore.
The stock hasn’t completely recovered, I overheard an employee tell a customer that the travel section is one of the stories specialties, but it was a section that was completely destroyed by the crash and still a little sparse. The foundation of a wide selection is set. Along with the standard fiction and non-fiction, there is a large section of graphic novels, tweener novels (I loved this option, there needs to be an option for kids who are too advanced for childrens’ books but too young for YA), young adult, science fiction, and cooking. Plus, the cafe is up and running offering drinks and snacks. Several cases offered unique gifts.
Many bookstores do a lot to support local schools, but Flintridge Books & Coffee takes the relationship to a new level. It devotes four bookshelves to the reading lists of the local schools (an impressive list of books, reflective of the outstanding reputation of the school district), plus a sheet of coupons for students of the local schools. With a coupon the student receives a discount and there are coupons for different types of books, encouraging the kids to try something new. Each sheet offers four coupons for core literature books, then one for each of historical fiction, contemporary fiction, a Newbery winner and a biography. Moreover, for each coupon used, the store gives 10% of the sale price back to the school. Given the massive cuts in education in California, this is a needed contribution from a local business.
A sense of community isn’t a one-way relationship. The residents of La Canada Flintridge continued to shop from the trailer in the back lot, stopped by to express their concern and support, and on Saturday the place was mobbed at times. We left at 9PM and saw two large groups of people just arriving. After the tragedy of last spring, it is nice to see so many people happy to have their bookstore back.
964 Foothill Blvd.
La Canada Flintridge, CA 91011
T: 818.790.0717
Tags: California, California bookstore, Flintridge, Flintridge bookstore, La Canada, La Canada bookstore
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