While these were good “fillers” for us (and lots of fun), there was no book focus, as with an author speaking, so no boost to book sales.
Wine sales went OK, though we were not known — and we didn’t aim to be known — as a live music venue per se, so we didn’t really tap into the marketing and promotion of live music venues. But our cosy basement did suit this low-key musical entertainment.
One memorable last-minute musical filler was provided by a great saxophonist who was “between gigs” and busking on the street. Faced with an empty Thursday night program, Sandy popped out to the corner of Market and York Streets, and offered the busker fifty bucks and his dinner for a few hours playing. It worked well, and he came back on other occasions, until he got a “proper gig” and was no longer available.
In addition to our forays into live music, Tea In The Library always had background music playing in the shop. Now, there are varying schools of thought on this. Some love it, some hate it. I love it, so we had a sophisticated audio system installed during the fitout. There were ten speakers throughout the shop, including one in each loo, one outside and audible on our landing, and one in the kitchen (Jo’s request). The CD player had the capacity to hold five discs. At the time it was being purchased and installed, Todd asked if it was possible to have more. I wondered why five wasn’t enough, and the heartfelt answer was that the repeat cycle comes around boringly often when you are on the shop floor all day.
Initially, I bought a few cheap CD sets of ABC collections of light jazz and light classical, and a little Ella Fitzgerald. You know the kind of thing. Stuff I thought our demographic would enjoy. But within only days of opening, everyone in The Team had hauled in their own favourites from home. Some strict rules had to be implemented to ensure that our customers didn’t have an horrendous mish-mash, although we did expand my super-conservative selection somewhat!
I also rather favoured the “frog in a rainforest” kind of atmo-spheric mood music, or the type of thing you find on “chill out” CDs. Emma disdained this, calling it “doof-doof” music. Christmas time brought it its own musical challenges, with The Team less than enthusiastic when I brought in The Three Tenors — “I’m Dreaming Of A White Christmas” with an Italian accent. I thought it was very endearing. However, somehow an uneasy consensus was reached and maintained, and the Music In The Library was usually pleasant and relaxed — like our shop.
I recall an exception one slow Saturday afternoon, when I came in to find Paul tending an almost empty shop, and I immediately realised the reason why — a dreadful dirge, in the cowboy tradition, was playing. It was apparently a favourite of Paul’s, and he couldn’t understand my horror. He seemed rather hurt when I expressed my loathing of the music. He said that he had taken the opportunity to put on his own favourite because there were so few customers about. A “chicken-and-egg” discussion then ensued.
Chapter Thirty
The fourth estate
So what was the world hearing about us? What was the press corps reporting? It came as yet another steep learning curve for me, taking baby steps in marketing and PR, to learn how the message you try to project might not always be heard quite as you intended. On the other hand, it gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling to hear others describe my little shop in glowing terms. Here are some examples:
In December 2003, shortly after opening, we were thrilled to be mentioned in Good Weekend even if we were confused with a library and we didn’t sell magazines:
Joining those serene and cosy establishments that manage to be tearoom, bookshop and library in one is Tea In The Library in the heart of the CBD. It opened three weeks ago and, still looking as fresh as an unturned page, offers breakfast, lunch and morning and afternoon teas, the latest news mags, shelves of new book titles and comfy chairs to read them in. Debates, poetry readings and meet-the-author events are planned (this Wednesday, aviation history fans can meet Bruce Harris, author of Wild About Flying, 6 PM; $5), book clubs are nurtured, and on Thursdays from 6 PM to 8.30 PM and Sundays, 1 PM to 3 PM, you can hear Jazz one week, strings the next.
Foodweek magazine carried an item in December 2003, courtesy of Whiteworks’ efforts. At least we were recognised as “the first of its kind”, rather than “joining” other establishments, as the Good Weekend writer would have. Understandably, Foodweek was more interested in the source of our tea and coffee than in books::
New Concept Tearoom Opens
Tea In The Library, a new concept tearoom, opened in Sydney’s CBD a fortnight ago. The first of its kind, Tea In The Library is a new city retailer that is a mix of lounge room and bookstore café. The extensive tea menu features 17 boutique varieties sourced mainly from South-East Asia. Sydney-based importer, Pine Tea & Coffee supplies the outlet with a unique house blend coffee variety but spends about three months of the year tracking down special teas from the south-east Asian region. The outlet, in York St., also serves light meals from Monday to Saturday, staying open till 9 PM on Thursdays. Once bedded down, there are plans to open other similar concept stores in the city.
I’m not sure where that last line came from, but I was obviously talking big at the time!
Joining the flurry of media mentions we achieved shortly after opening was this item in The Sydney Morning Herald in December 2003. It appeared in the newspaper’s food supplement in a column called “Short Black” and was accompanied by a gratifyingly large photograph:
Brain Food
Tea and Books in the City
If you like Bondi’s Gertrude & Alice but prefer your books new rather than second-hand, check Tea In The Library, a new city retailer that is a mix of a lounge room and a bookstore café. The books were spared a working over by Short Black last week because the kitchen was closed but the menu looks interesting. Lime muffins with crème friache and smoked salmon and plenty of soups.
Tea for two: Settle back in a comfortable seat with a good book and a brew at Tea In The Library.
The Sunday Telegraph also favoured us with an item during December 2003. Everyone liked the lime muffins:
Potted eggs on toast ($5.50/$6.50 with salmon) for breakfast, lime muffins with crème fraîche and smoked salmon ($6) at morning or afternoon tea, and all the books you can read while you dine. They call it a “brain bistro”, although the flavours are also a fusion of sorts — Northern European, Mediterranean and Asian, vamped up by flavoured oils. You can enjoy a rice wrap of Chinese barbecue duck ($9.50) with Rushdie, tea with Tolstoy, or Moroccan lamb salad ($9.50) with … well, anyone you like. In season, there are fresh figs with prosciutto and parmesan ($9.50). It’s a book store, despite the name, so you can have your cake (or scones or tartlets) and shop as well.
I noted with a resigned sigh “despite the name” …
Around this time I was interviewed over the phone by Monica Heary, a fearless reporter for one of the weekly newspapers, the one that circulated in my suburb, the Sydney Weekly Courier:
Literary Lunches
Lindfield resident and Nepal trekker, Annette Freeman, scales new heights with the launch of her city bookstore … Trekking in the Himalayas and daily walks around Lindfield might seem at odds, but not for a local intellectual property lawyer. Lindfield’s Annette Freeman has limbered up with local walks, to trek twice to Nepal, and is now fulfilling another dream. It is one of comfy lounges, open fireplaces and sipping a hot drink while reading a new or favourite book. The setting could well be an English country home or a New York literary club. Instead, it is Annette’s city bookstore/café, Tea In The Library. For Annette, inspiration didn’t come on the peaks of Everest but in the First World, during her visits to the USA for work conferences where she discovered the likes of The Tattered Cover in Denver, Colorado, The Gotham Book Mart on New York’s West 47th Street, and the private literary clubs and lounges of Boston and Washington. As a result, Annette decided to set up a similar “bookstore for booklovers” in Sydney. “It is the synthesis of lots of fabrics,” she says, as her dream came to life
at the store’s official opening last Tuesday, November 25. Of her own Sydney “literary loungeroom”, she says, “it’s a 50/50 split between bookstore and café and it’s all quite integrated.” With some other Sydney bookstores – and even newsagents – placing written signs to discourage casual browsers from dog-earing their stock, here it’s encouraged. “We’re finding that after people start to read they generally buy the book.” Having retained her lifelong passion for reading she says of her boutique bookstore, “it’s got all the sorts of books I like, books on mountaineering, trekking, adventure. There’s good fiction and new releases, as well as classics, current affairs, biographies and the latest in political matters.” Annette’s travels to Nepal have been such calming experiences she’s felt confident enough to leave her own embryonic enterprise in employee’s hands for a month while she went trekking overseas again. Traveling to the Himalayas “gives you different attitudes,” she says. “It is quite a spiritual experience, it is so quiet, and being in a Buddhist country gives you an approach that can really change your life.” She said her experiences in the Himalayas had left her feeling “pretty calm and detached,” and toady she continues with her fitness routine by walking each morning around Lindfield and Killara. The bookstore will regularly host visiting authors and wine-tasting, wine chat and reviews of latest wine and food books, with one taking place today, December 3.
I swear I never said “It is the synthesis of lots of fabrics”.
As the months passed, the initial interest of the Fourth Estate waned a bit, and we were pleased just to rate a mention of our events in Spectrum’s “What’s On” column.
Then in July 2004 another quite substantial piece appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald, again in its food and wine section, Good Living. It was written by Keith Austin, and Keith (or the sub-editor) had chosen a headline punning a then-best selling book called Eats Shoots and Leaves (an interesting tome on the perils of punctuation).
Eats, books and leaves
Lunch in “The Library” can turn contrary teens on to greens. It’s hard to know what to do with kids in the school holidays. They tell me it’s just not done to tie them to a chair in the office and throw peanuts occasionally. These days you have to entertain them, spend quality time with them. Come on; have you ever spent any time with 13-year-old boys? They’re too old for that trick of scattering a dozen green Smarties on the lawn and telling them to find all thirteen before they come back inside. As an experiment, then, I took The Terrible Teen and his mate Flyn to lunch at a bookshop. Given that a book is about the only thing that can silence The Teen (insofar as he goes deaf, dumb and blind when he’s got his head in one), this seemed like a good idea. On the other hand, Flynn is of that persuasion of boys who would rather pick up dog poo than a book. He’s also, poor lad, a vegetarian, whereas The Teen seemingly subsists on a diet of air and bogeys. And so off we trooped to Tea In The Library. Not for tea; for lunch. And it’s not a library; it’s a bookshop that’s tucked away opposite the QVB, is a cosy haven from the commercial hustle and bustle. It’s just a short flight of stairs down to the entrance but one step across the threshold takes you into a parallel universe. It’s like stepping through a wardrobe into Laura Ashley World. Normally I find a comfy little nook in which to rest the old bones but today the place is chocka and we have to sit on the banquette at the top of the stairs. This rather changes the scenario as we are now closer to the street than the bookshop. Still, the boys don’t care and sometimes you can get too cosy. I say this because one day I sat in my chintzy armchair opposite a businesswoman who fell asleep on the deep, soft sofa. It was a whole-nine-yards kip, too; head back, mouth open, snoring, drool. Flynn, it turns out, is a weirdo vegetarian who doesn’t like eggplant, zucchini, onion, capsicum, parsnip or squash. This is a pity, because the vegetable stack that we order includes all of the above except for the parsnip and squash, whose places are taken by mushrooms and a rocket and pesto mayonnaise. Luckily, he has stuffed himself full of Thai pumpkin soup (on which he is something of an expert). His verdict: “It’s good. It’s not blaagh but it’s yum.” Blaagh, by the way, means “not too spicy”. The Teen is a bit taken aback by his linguini with blue swimmer crab because it has green stuff in it. And the shredded crab’s green too. This would be the fresh herbs, as described on the menu. Surprisingly, he eats most of it. Me? I go for that rather nice tandoori chicken stack, which comes with a fresh salad and a couple of pappadums. I also (please keep this to yourself as I don’t want it getting out that I’m going soft in my old age) eat the whole vegetable stack. And enjoy it! Whatever next?”
“Good Reading” magazine sells through bookshops, and we were approached to buy advertising in it. After deliberation, we purchased the right to have a lovely pic of our shop on the front cover of the April 2004 edition. Our shelves, chesterfields, fireplace, a pot of tea, a few scattered books — we did look inviting! The edition featured a “walking tour” of the bookshops of Sydney. Our piece was number one:
To kick off your day, start with a morning breakfast in the latest addition to the Sydney bookshop scene, Tea In The Library. It has a very cosy feel with a central café surrounded by walls of books, big comfy lounges and even a fireplace to warm your toes in winter while you browse — as our front cover shows. This is the sort of bookshop where you can escape the world for a while relaxing with a cup of tea or coffee, a delicious lunch or listening to some jazz or an author in the evening.
“Voyeur” magazine, read by travelers, ran a piece on bookshop cafes, and Tea In The Library rated a mention, amongst our closest competitors:
Booked in
What could be better on a chilly afternoon that to retreat into the welcoming arms of a well-stocked bookstore to spend a few hours escaping with the latest travel, fantasy or crime novel? Oh yes, a bookstore that also serves creamy lattes and deliciously warming morsels of food! Berkelouw Books on Oxford Street, a three-storey emporium of delights, is a definite winner in this category, as is Tea In The Library on York Street, a peaceful retreat and Australia’s first licensed bookshop. But for the ultimate cosiness, head straight for Gertrude & Alice Bookstore, a bookstore-coffee shop combination just off the main drag on Hall Street at Bondi. Named after Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas, the famous twentieth century couple who believed life should involve lots of food and the company of creative people, all things considered it’s a pretty good namesake.
Berkelouw’s on Oxford and Gertrude & Alice are still in business. Thank goodness.
A trade magazine, “Australian Bookseller & Publisher” included Tea In The Library when it ran a long article on combining bookshops and cafes. The other featured businesses included Riverbend Books in Brisbane (able to host and cater for 150 at a standing author event); Readings’ Port Melbourne store (which contracts out its café); and Literary Latte in the small town of Woodend in Victoria. Literary Latte and Tea In The Library were compared as “case studies” of the bookshop-café phenomena. For us, Todd was interviewed:
“The café generates a lot of traffic and helps the book business by accelerating the positive word-of-mouth publicity generated for the shop. However, not all café customers buy books, whereas most book-buying customers are also patrons of the café. The challenge for the bookshop is to try to translate café patronage to book purchases and communicate that the bookshop is a crucial part of what we do.” The café and its 19th-centruy reading-room-style — with a fireplace, wing-back chairs, studded leather couches and warm ambience — creates a point of difference between Tea and most of its nearby competitors, as well as bringing in an extra revenue stream … How do bookshop-cum-cafes address the delicate issues of keeping new books new, and off the dining table? Tea’s [Todd] says that so far it hasn’t emerged as a problem, even though customers can sit anywhere — even the club-like sofas and wingback chairs — and be served a pot of tea with fine china and silver service for $3.50. Most people who come to the store are very aware of the value of books, he said, and they are
supplied with linen napkins, which, as well as being a nice touch, assist in keeping the book stock fresh and sellable … While Tea’s principal Annette Freeman may not see profit as a key motivator, even lawyers don’t have unlimited cash reserves … So are there any bucks in combining books and bagels? … .[Todd] says that while it’s obviously early days, store traffic is increasing steadily and the demographic is “well-read, educated professionals” (i.e. potential book buyers). Tea brought in one of Sydney’s best boutique PR shops, Whiteworks, to help establish a profile and it’s paid off handsomely with a half-page in the Sydney Morning Herald’s “Good Living” supplement (in the food section!) and a range of other stories and radio interviews. A book signing for Don Watson’s Death Sentence … also drew in a large audience and plenty of sales, and these kinds of events have been a weekly feature ever since.
We were always happy to find a mention of the shop in the newspaper columns about what to do and where to go in the city — even if the “scent of unthumbed pages” was a bit of a head-scratcher in this piece — perhaps it differentiates from whatever scent there is in a second-hand bookshop. We were recommended as a “cosy date spot”:
Bookworms
With the scent of unthumbed pages, hushed library tones and comfy lounges, a latte and a flip through the new releases section makes for a relaxed dating experience. Behind the Queen Victoria Building on York Street, Tea In The Library is a peaceful retreat from the crush of buses on the streets above. Offering 19 “boutique varieties” of tea, Tea In The Library is also Australia’s first licensed bookshop, so you can enjoy a vino alongside the gourmet menu …
Finally, there was the day that my own profession, the lawyers, decided to take a closer look. I was interviewed and photographed for an article in the “Law Society Journal”:
Tea in the Library Page 17