Tucked away on a narrow street in the Historic Shockoe Slip of Richmond, VA., lies a refreshing place to clear your mind and get away.
It’s warm, friendly, and always there. It gives you advice, counsel, insight, and adventure. This special hideaway is brilliant and knows everything about love and romance, thrill and adventure, business and politics, and it wants you to learn more about what it has to offer.
It always open during the day, it’s always friendly, welcoming, and warm. It’s the most popular, because it has so many friends, of all different ages. I have never encountered anything so smart and simple all at once.
If at any point in time you find yourself wondering the beautiful cobblestone streets of downtown, Richmond, VA., stop in and meet the counselor, the adventurer, the therapist, the comic relief, the friend. What is the name of this person, place, or thing that has been so intimately described? The name is the Fountain Bookstore.
From the moment I walked into The Fountain Bookstore, I immediately felt something different. This bookstore is unlike any other bookstore I have been in. It is small, warm, and quaint and there is a peaceful serenity that surrounds you from the moment you walk in with its “old timey” feel.
Kelly Justice is the owner of The Fountain Bookstore and I had the chance to meet with her just the other day!
Upon meeting Kelly, I could really grasp that she loves books! She reads about 2 or 3 a week, and really loves to talk about books!
She has been with The Fountain Bookstore since 2000 where she started as the general manager & events coordinator.
One thing I really admire about Kelly is her persistence through change. Which is one of the values we teach our clients here at Catch Your Limit. Over the years not only has our society changed but so has our technology. Amazon.com put a beating on independent bookstores, especially The Fountain.
When asked about how she and The Fountain were able to cope with change and the competition of the online world Kelly said, “We had to get our online game better.” Their website www.fountainbookstore.com enables you to purchase books online and read about some of the new books they have in store! Her creativity came into play by coming up with creative ideas unique to her, her store, and Richmond; basically things that the Internet cannot offer. For example she started occasional book clubs, nightly book clubs, and author signings. The writer of True Blood even did her first book signing at The Fountain before she signed with HBO! How cool is that!
One thing I really loved about meeting Kelly is her attentiveness to her customers. There was a young man in the store who was looking for a new and exciting read. When he was describing what he likes, Kelly selected about 5 books to meet his criteria. Upon choosing those 5 books, she described each one of them beautifully and she personally had read them all. When the young man began looking through the books Kelly had recommended she told him, “If none of those work for you we will start our search over!” To me, that is something the Internet cannot offer, a personal, quality, relationship between the customer and the staff, trying to get the right book to the right person, at the right time, and that is exactly what Kelly, and The Fountain Bookstore do; they help people get exactly what they want when they want it.
The next time you need encouragement, inspiration, adventure, or advice stop by The Fountain Bookstore and visit Kelly and explore all the endless possibilities they have to offer you. I did, and I loved my experience there!
The Fountain Bookstore
1312 E. Cary St.
