Shoreline Business Spotlight: Ridgecrest Books
Thursday, December 5, 2024
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| Owners Becky and Kevin with their families in front of Ridgecrest Books |
By Jeremy Gross
Photos courtesy Ridgecrest Books
As part of our ongoing series highlighting Shoreline's small business community, I sat down with Becky and Kevin, the owners of Ridgecrest Books. Since opening their doors in March 2024, they've been building more than just a bookstore – they're creating a community space where readers can connect, discover new books, and feel at home among the shelves.
Read on to find out about how they compete with online sellers, why bookstores are like bars, and advice for new business owners.
Note to Readers: If you have a favorite business that you’d like profiled in Shoreline Area News, please let Jeremy know! Business owners are welcome to reach out too.
Jeremy: Tell me the story leading up to opening Ridgecrest Books.
Becky: I've been working in bookstores since I was 20. I started working in a bookstore as a part time job when I was in college and I got hooked – especially to the discount on books by working there! After a couple of years, I started to see how I would do things differently. I started to map it out in my head... if this were my store, what would I be doing? So, this has been a long-time goal of mine. I met Kevin at Secret Garden Books about 5 years ago – and we made a great team!
Kevin: I come from an education background - I was a middle school literacy teacher back in Iowa. Also, I've had experience in retail and customer service. After I stopped teaching in Iowa, I ran a friend's coffee shop for two years and really learned a lot there… the logistics of day-to-day customer service, setting up systems to do things efficiently. I came out to the University of Washington for graduate school and I stumbled into a job at Secret Garden Books. That’s where I met Becky and our other colleague, Mary. It was really awesome… we made the shop feel like our own, trying all these different things, and turning our ideas into reality, and seeing it going really well. When I found out Becky had always wanted to open a shop, I thought about how our team of people is really what makes it all work and how it would be a good opportunity to get involved.
Becky: At first, Kevin offered to invest money. But then I said, “why don't you just be my business partner instead?” We ended up leaving Secret Garden to open Ridgecrest Books. And it's been really great so far!
Jeremy: What was the process of opening the store like?
Becky: Financially, it had to be in the right place. Honestly, meeting Kevin and having Kevin say that he was on board meant that I could do it. It was like, you know, I had a partner now. He helped make the financial part work more easily... neither of us could do it on our own.
I think the scariest part was making the decision to leave Secret Garden. But once we did, then it was like, “well, we both need to work, so we better get this place open.” We had motivation! Once we made the decision, it was pretty easy to move forward. It was also exciting and scary!
One very terrifying moment was waiting for the loan to come through. We weren't sure if it was going work out or not. And then we signed the lease and it was time to get going!
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| Kevin and Beck during construction |
Kevin: We know how to run a bookshop, but everything else leading up to that moment was new. Figuring out permitting and loan applications was new and difficult. And that took a while. Things always take longer than expected. But once the shop was open, we're like, “Ok, this is what we do!" Running a bookstore is in our comfort zone!
Becky: We were able to bring on Mary – who worked with us at Secret Garden. I think she's described us as a three-legged stool, which is a very awkward metaphor that always makes me laugh. But she is the third leg in our three-legged stool. We adore her. We've worked with her as long as we've worked with each other. And she's like family to us. We were really excited to bring her on board. And she works evenings a lot so that Kevin and I can go home and be with our families and see our kids. She's our third person, but that's it for now. And it'll probably be a little while before we add more people.
Jeremy: What surprised you most about running your own bookstore?
Becky: I think one of the biggest surprises for me is how much I've really loved doing book clubs and events. Those are things that I was always kind of reluctant to be a part of previously. In the past, I had my tasks that I was good at and I didn't have to talk to lots of people. But people interaction is a whole other level when you're doing events or hosting a book club.
I was nervous about that, but I really love it! I love seeing the store full of people and I love connecting with the community and providing a space for people to talk about books and hear about books
Kevin: Over a couple of years at Secret Garden, we really got to know that customer base and the regulars. And I was surprised and also heartened to see how quickly that happened again at Ridgecrest Books. While the customer base is still growing, we've already got some regular customers. It really does feel like, in less than a year, that we've been established as “a place.”
As a little institution in this little neighborhood, and across Shoreline, it seems the word is getting out. There's a reputation building quicker than I thought. We see familiar faces coming back every week – and that’s been awesome!
Jeremy: As you were describing that, I had this vision of regulars at the pub. Kind of like, “hey, the bartender knows my name.”
Kevin: I definitely see thinking of a bar business model as something similar to what we do here. You definitely want that atmosphere and space for people to come and feel good about. You want to feel like you're at a neat space and that something is slightly elevated. And it's the same experience when you're coming in looking at books.
We want people to have a good time and feel cool looking at books! And feel welcomed! I think we do that really well - greeting people as they come in and making them feel at home and letting them enjoy the books and the space.
Jeremy: Can you guys tell if somebody's going to be a browser or a buyer?
Becky: I think buyers tend to pick up books and carry them around the store. Browsers move very quickly through the store.
Jeremy: I’m definitely a browser. But my wife is a buyer. I move fast.
Kevin: Yeah, you can kind of tell when someone's trajectory is like starting to head towards the door – just scanning titles quickly. But browsing's great. We want people just to come in - not everyone's going to buy something, but we hope that they enjoy their time. And they might come back and something during the holiday season or whenever.
Jeremy: From the business owner's perspective - you have this community service thing going on, but you still need to stay in business and you still need to sell books, right?
Kevin: I mean, there's only so much you can do. It's weird, but things sell better when there's more people in the shop as well. People walk by and if they see a full shop, they're more likely to come in because it's a fun environment. So, like on a Sunday morning, when there's the food truck outside and the shop gets full, maybe half of those people are going to buy a book. It's great even if they leave without buying something. We’re thankful that they’ve come in.
Jeremy: I guess the more eyeballs, the better… and who knows the domino effect of just getting a foot in the door. How about those books clubs? I know you enjoy them and the community building – are those also revenue generating activities?
Becky: It's been really, really fun to watch. We can look back on our previous book club books and the sales histories show that we're selling more book club books every month. More people are becoming aware. In October, we had 15 people show up for book club, which was a huge crowd for us... we had a great group of people, diverse age groups as well.
The point of events for us is to make connections with authors, to bring in people from the community, but also to hopefully sell a lot of copies of the club book.
Kevin: It's cool to see how those books sell way more copies than the number of people that come to the book club. People see we have a little book club book tag on the table and will buy it to see what's going on and often follow along at home, which is great!
Becky: Plus, we always choose really cool books!
Jeremy: Related to forecasting and projections, do you know how many books you need to sell to keep the lights on?
Kevin: We started with our financial projections that pulled numbers from a lot of different sources, like our past experiences and the American Bookseller Association. But it was all still just an educated guess. Now that we've been open for almost nine months, we're starting to see trends and a fuller picture of where we're at.
We've been able to project our expenses pretty well. And now it's just a matter of knowing what we have to sell every month to keep moving along. Everybody tells you that a small business doesn’t make money in the first few years, so we need to focus on growing.
There are months that are quieter than we thought - and some months that are way busier. We've got the holidays coming up, which is huge for retail, but it's the first time for us here in the space. So, we're pretty anxious to get through this first Christmas to see if it looks how we thought it would look.
It's just a matter of finding ways to build that customer base... that's why we’re happy anytime someone just walks in!
Jeremy: How are you competing with online sellers and the big chains?
Becky: One of the things that we do here is curation. We have a small space and we’re helping to narrow down the options. We don't use an algorithm. We use our personal experience. This is what we read and we love. We're drawing on our own experience and we're talking to people and hearing people's stories.
And it’s about trust - we are recommending certain books. It's about building up that reputation and using our years of bookselling experience and our own reading habits to help people navigate through all of the options.
Kevin: Also, I think you can't discount the fact that we're in the Seattle area. It's just a different customer base, and we're really fortunate for that. For example, Independent Bookstore Day is a national thing, but the way the Seattle-area does it is huge and unlike any other place. It's a week-long event and there are around 29 independent bookstores and there are more and more stores every year.
It's cool that the base supports the actual experience of going into a bookstore. I think it's like a social event for a lot of people… it’s like going into a bar! This is a tough business to be in anywhere, but we are bookshop people and there's a lot of them around Seattle. It’s a unique place for that.
Becky: I think people understand the importance of shopping local and supporting family-owned businesses and small businesses. And we're just lucky to be in an area where there's a lot of people who are conscientious about where they put their money.
Kevin: One interesting conversation is when a few people may look at small business shopping as almost like a charity. Like, “hey, we're this local business and we know you could shop at Amazon, but come on, help us out, buy it from us.” But Becky and I have always sort of been bothered by that. The service that we offer and the space that we offer and the community that we offer should speak for itself.
Our goal is to have people want to shop here because it’s a local business that’s enlivening the community, and know who you are, and because we have author events and Amazon does not have author events, and we let you pick up a book and browse around. There’s a value to the space.
And with Amazon, the discount really isn’t what it used to be. And now with artificial intelligence-generated books - there's no quality control. With the deluge of AI-generated books, it’s hard to weed through it all.
Becky: We work hard to do the best we can in this space to give people the best experience. I think that's all we can do. We think a lot about the customer experience and how we can make it better, rather than just expecting people to come in because we're a small business.
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| It was quiet for a few minutes on opening day |
Jeremy: Do you remember the first book you sold at Ridgecrest Books?
Kevin: That first weekend was crazy! [Kevin checks their sales system.]
Becky: I remember that Tito bought One Punch Man manga on opening day – that might have been our first… but Tito is my son, so that might not count.
Kevin: The system shows the first non-family one as “Happy Place” - an Emily Henry book. Happy place… that makes sense!
We had gotten all the work done, turned the lights on, opened the doors, and it was quiet for 10 minutes. And we're like, “oh no, oh no.”
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| Customers flowed in the door on opening day |
And then it was just a flow of people for 8 hours nonstop. It was incredible. It was so fun, such a great opening weekend. Validating too, after all the work to get to that point. And then the shop was empty for 2 weeks while we were waiting to restock everything, which was very stressful, but a good problem.
Jeremy: What advice would you give to new business owners?
Kevin: You’ve got to find the balance of doing what's cool and what makes money. Like with books… you’ve got to carry things that are going to sell. There's always this balance.
Becky: Like carrying those political memoirs! Some of those sell really quickly for a week, and then stop. But you have to bring them in during that time – no matter how much you hate it!
Kevin: Yea, a lot of trends like those memoirs. I’d prefer to not have any book by a politician or politically-connected person because I want them to be working and not writing books. But those books sell and we need to have those on the shelf!
Becky: I wasn't surprised by the time commitment... but that is something I would say about opening a business. It's going to be your life for a while you get it up and running. And I love it. I don't mind it at all. But the amount of time that both of us have spent here and getting things set up and the amount of time we'll be spending while we get settled.
Kevin: We were fortunate to be able to bring on Mary. But the onus is on the owners to do the work. It’s hustling for every dollar. We did a book fair for the Pacific Northwest Authors Association. And Becky did like a month of work leading up to it to get everything ordered, organized, and all the communication. And then I was there leaving early, coming home late, and selling the books for 12 hours a day. When all was said and done, it was like a $500 profit. But that's what it takes... that's the type of margins we're talking about with the amount of work, especially early on. Profit margins are pretty slim in most businesses. You need to dig up any opportunity you can find and you have to put in those hours to make it work.
Jeremy: What's your favorite book from your childhood?
Kevin: From childhood, I loved Jon Scieszka. He wrote “The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!” and “The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales.” I remember being like, “oh, this guy's odd!” I love that the illustrations are strange and there’s just an irreverent sense of humor. Those are some of the first books I remember really poring over, reading over and over again and just looking at the pictures, taking it all in. I love those books.
Becky: I think I’ve read “The Giver” like a billion times. And then “A Wrinkle in Time” was another one that I really loved. I recently re-read that one with my kids and it was way weirder than I remembered. Way more like abstract and hard to understand. Even as an adult, I was like “a lot of things in this book don't make any sense!” You just have to suspend your disbelief and just go with it.
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| Ridgecrest Books gift card |
Jeremy: Why did you choose Ridgecrest for your location?
Becky: The short answer is because I live in the neighborhood. I was a little hesitant at first coming from Ballard, I was used to that more urban foot traffic. We knew it was going to look a lot different in a quiet neighborhood. But I don't know, after meeting Megan and Jared [owners of the building and Ridgecrest Pub & Drumlin], we just felt like it was right. I already have deep roots in this community. So, it feels really good to be able to say, “well, now I'm gonna do something to give back and to make the community a little bit better."
Kevin: We had looked at a lot of different locations. Seattle's pretty saturated with bookshops... most neighborhoods in Seattle had their bookshop already. And then we saw this space and met Jared and Megan and seeing how invested they are in this neighborhood and then the city of Shoreline. We were excited to continue to provide neat things and opportunities for people.
Jeremy: What's the best way for people to reach you and find out more?
Becky: We have an active website that you can order books on. We've got a newsletter that comes out once a month has event information, book club information, and also new releases that we're really excited about. You can pre-order books and we love pre-orders because it helps us know how many books to bring in. But otherwise, just come and hang out and introduce yourself and see the space.
Kevin: Come visit us, but also just check out the Ridgecrest neighborhood. There's a lot of cool stuff. The food trucks every night, Sunday morning breakfast food truck, coffee across the street, the Crest Theater. There's parking! Come check out everything. There's a lot of cool stuff happening!
Jeremy Gross is a personal & business finance and cash flow coach for small business owners. He loves learning about each business owner’s journey into entrepreneurship and helping others on their business adventures!
You can reach him at jeremy@youpluscash.com
or learn more at www.youpluscash.com
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