The coolest bookstore bars in America.
The bookstore bar aspires to combine two beloved things: wine and stacks. Though people have been pairing vittles and pages as long as either have existed, the retail trend has taken off in recent years. As Melissa Kravitz Hoeffner reported in Eater this week, the book bar creates “a third place” that fills a specific social hole between work and home.
In New York, such places continue to sprout. Anaïs, a natural wine and book bar named for the famous French sensualist, opened in Brooklyn in 2023. And the year before that, New Yorkers got Bibliotheque, a SoHo wine bar featuring “10,000 titles.” But here are some others worth shouting about.
Reading, sipping, painting. Via Insta.
Liz’s Book Bar
New to Carroll Gardens, Liz’s Book Bar is the brainchild of the novelist Maura Cheeks. The Acts of Forgiveness author named the store for her grandmother, and has populated her mahogany shelves with old favorites. And this lively new hub has big community aspirations. The bar recently hosted its inaugural Paint and Sip.
Santos in splendor. Via NYTimes.
The Lit. Bar
Cheeks was inspired in part by The Lit. Bar, an uptown institution founded in 2019 by Bronx native and resident, Noëlle Santos. Though the thoughtfully chosen titles and wine should be enough lure, Lit. Bar is especially notable because it’s “currently the only brick & mortar bookstore serving the Boogie Down Bronx.” Come read and chill, if you’re headed uptown.
Via Insta
Book Club Bar
A newish and welcome addition to Alphabet City, Book Club Bar has kind of nailed the “third space” brief. The cafe and cultural hub has a nice front bar, at which bookish tenders sling coffee by day and harder stuff by night. The back is a proper bookstore, stuffy armchairs and all. From readings to speed-dating, events are common.
Image via Spotty Dog, c/o Francis Schram.
The Spotty Dog
Upstaters seeking a beer and book fix can enjoy the Spotty Dog in Hudson. Founded in 2005, the narrow bar and fantastically curated selection make for the perfect Tuesday evening. The store/social balance is especially nice here.
Via Condé Nast
Kramers (née Kramerbooks + Afterwords)
Kramers has the benefit of presidential endorsement. And also, a full menu. This charming bookstore, sprouted in DuPont Circle in 1976, emphasizes newer titles—but it also has a lovely children’s section. The crab benedict ain’t bad, either.
Via Eater
Busboys & Poets
A D.C. institution with eight locations, Busboys and Poets is another cultural hub with a full menu in addition to a bar. But these beautiful stores are uniquely community minded. A progressive mission guides their live event programming.
Via kibbitznest
kibbitznest books, brews, and blarney
A jewel of Chicago’s Lincoln Park, kibbitznest is another bookstore meets brewery.
Per its emphatic website, kibbitznest aspires to be a “A WIFI-FREE Third Place where Old-Fashioned Human Communication is KING.” This book bar hosts events regularly (like its “old-fashioned trivia” night) and caters to a heady reader. The website, again: “Most of the books are from A, B, and C SENSE-rated academic presses and publishers, including the University of Chicago Press.”
Via NewOrleans.com.
Garden District Book Shop
No better place than New Orleans to spend a summer afternoon wrapped around a cold one. This unique building once housed a skating rink in the 1800s, and today is home to a wide selection of new and used books. There’s a very cute coffee shop on deck below, and the bar is a new addition. Look out for event nights featuring title-specific specialty cocktails.
Via LookOut SC.
Bad Animal
Located in Santa Cruz, Bad Animal is a suitably groovy addition to the book and wine trend. Title-wise, their “specialty is the wild side of the human animal—the excessive, psychedelic, revolutionary, fierce, transgressive, uncanny, and uncivilized.” The wine is meant to be just as specific. Bottles skew biodynamic. And there’s also a Thai dinner pop-up on site.
Via East Bay Express.
Clio’s
This basement book store in Oakland pits cocktails against an eccentric selection. In this warm space, books are grouped by decade in order to—in the words of proprietor Timothy Don—“push back against the sectarianism of the present moment.” Don credits some of his curating savvy to a long collaboration with the late Lewis Lapham.
Alright, sipper-readers. Consider this a jumping off point. Shout out your favorites below, if I missed ’em!
