Cause for celebration: new bookstores

Legacy Books, interior

Teeter: "She really wanted to have chefs that are signing their books, that they can actually cook. So this was a real design challenge and an opportunity for the space. There's a camera over there, and it displays over the cooking section on the TV, and it can be back there on the TV. So if you can't actually get into this space to see it, you can see it here as well."

Other highlights are a café that serves beer and wine (an unbelievably humane and cultured notion) and a third-floor gallery that displays books on photography and architecture as if they were artworks. Speaking of artworks, sculptures and paintings are on display by area artists Tamara White, Elizabeth McDonald and Seth Schwaiger.

But what distinguishes successful independents is their book selection and customer service. With the right mix and the right diligence, an independent can become a favorite, local cultural institution like a museum or library. Meg Smith is marketing director for the American Booksellers Association.

Smith: "What people look to an independent bookstore for is a sense of real personalization - in selling, in choices of reading material. And it really takes on the identity of the people that shop there. And very naturally, independent bookstores have been a center for a lot of community activity."

One survey has found that the top two kinds of stores that people hope will open near them are bookshops and bakeries. That's good news for Jorge Alvarez and Gilbert Barrola. They've just opened Dicho's in the Bishop Arts District (It's at the corner of Seventh and Bishop -- the former home of the Naughty Dog coffeeshop.) In the back of the bookstore is a café run by Cretia's, the bakery on McKinney Avenue. At only 1300 square feet, Dicho's is cozy -- and smells of cookies.

Dichos is Spanish for "old sayings" and the store features both English and Spanish-language books. (Alvarez explains that the odd apostrophe, which suggests there's someone named Dicho involved with the store, came about because the word, dichos, was trademarked in California.) Alvarez started a bookstore in Pomona, California six years ago with his partner, and then opened a Dicho's in Gainesville, Texas, near the Oklahoma border, that the pair still run. They commute to Dallas.

Alvarez: "One of our goals is to make our store feel comfortable and home-like. In California, we were in an art colony, so we were surrounded by art galleries and culture. When we came to Bishop Arts, we felt we were at home again."

In Plano, Legacy Books aims to be a destination store, a shrine for booklovers all over Texas -- and beyond. Dicho's aim is much smaller. There isn't a single Borders or Barnes & Noble anywhere near Oak Cliff.

Interior of Dicho's

Alvarez: "There's no general bookstore that services the community. So we definitely found a niche where we feel that people are eager to have a bookstore."

Many people believe that bookstores are doomed because of online sellers like Amazon.com, even though Amazon sells less than 10 percent of all books. Actually, a much bigger threat is posed by big-box stores like Wal-Mart or Target, which skim off the bestsellers.

Yet if anyone understands the risks and the low-profit margin nature of bookselling, it's Tanner or Alvarez. And they remain optimistic.

Tanner: "I have to tell you, in some of the cities that I've been in with Barnes & Noble and with Borders, if you can do what they do in some of these locations, it's impossible for me to believe that we will not be successful."

You can hear book/daddy's dulcet tones deliver an audio version of this story at Artandseek.org

Image of Legacy interior, courtesy of Jake Hensley.