Tea in the Library (28 page)

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 … H
ow 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.