Barnes & Noble Booksellers

In general, I admire Barnes and Noble for continuing the legacy of print. They provide a nice experience for browsing literature and it’s not like they mark up the books, right? I mean the price is printed on the cover.
This time though I had to use the bathroom while browsing, number 2. Hit me out of the blue and I didn’t feel shame because there were two stalls and one was already occupied. Here’s the deal though. The paper was seriously like sandpaper. It was the worst toilet paper I’ve ever used. I would rather poop in the corner and wipe with my sock next time. I find it ironic that a company that thrives on paper can’t find any appropriate for human use.
So, other than that, 4 stars. A full star off for chafing my o-​ring.

Nice and clean Barnes and Noble. Has a café with free wifi, which is a great place to study/​read/​work. Love their games, toys, children’s section and kid’s play area. B&N is my go-​to for finding a gift for someone’s birthday. Staff is friendly and helpful. Location is good.

for café only: don’t go here if you want any peace and quiet at all. music is loud and usually some strange form of sexual gospel sounding shit… like boys2men in church… there’s always some loud mouth up at the counter blabbing about juvenile nonsense. I just want to study.

While this used to be my bookstore of choice, even though it IS cold, guys… anyway, I have (Meetup) book groups that were meeting in the café on Saturdays. We buy food and we buy books and we buy non-​books (higher markup) but they told us we couldn’t meet there anymore because people were walking around the store with sandwiches.
Our meetings are an hour to an hour and a half, and we eat and spend. I think we have the right to be there as much as the students who buy coffee and then spend all day studying their textbooks that they didn’t buy there… OR the ones who bring books and magazines to the café, stack them up, drink a coffee, but don’t buy and then leave them for the staff.
We are courteous and conscientious, clean up before and after ourselves, and we buy stuff… well, not anymore. Some folks used to drive an hour to go there, and needless to say, we’ll be using
to buy the $ 20K worth of books we buy yearly. That is a conservative estimate. I am so sad, B & N. This is why the bookstores will go out of business. Because sandwiches and Starbucks have become more important than people and books. (People with money who spend their money on books)
It’s the wave of the future. A tsunami ending the lives of bookstores everywhere. It’s no wonder. May they can become Barnes & Noble Sandwich Shops.

I find this hard to rate in any neutral area, because it’s a bookstore. While the staff seemed sparse, there were still a handful about that roamed the store with the usual «Are you finding everything alright?» jib. Better than having them up your butt every minute. CAN’T I JUST LOOK AT MY SUPERNATURAL TEEN ROMANCE BOOKS IN PEACE? (By the way, why is that even a genre? That’s not okay. Stop it.)
It’s a large store so the collection of material is pretty far and wide. I didn’t scan every single shelf, but the selection appeared a-​OK. I personally bought ‘Mass Effect: Revelations’ (eeee!), though I also wanted the Tolkien book, ‘Children of Hurin’.
I also stopped by the Starbucks within it and bought a Tazo chai tea latte which was rather lovely. They have tins of tea that I was sobbing over. I wantttt.

They have books! I read books. Electronic books and paper books. I love picking up stuff off the discount rack and bargain classics I miss from years ago. With so much online and tv bombarding us nowadays… there’s nothing like taking refuge in reading.

This is just for the coffee shop. The cold coffee shop.
The coffee shop is really cute and cozy, with med-​dark wood and corner wooden booths, yet the glass wall window allows natural light or at least a view of the sky when it is rainy and gray. Pretty.
But it is way too cold there. So I will not go back. My face could not take it even though I tried to prepare and bring my snow hat.

Pro: Free Wi-​Fi.
Con: No power outlets. I thought only pretentious Automobile Alley pseudo-​hipster coffee joints did stuff like that (yeah, I said it).
I would’ve ordered, and probably more than once.
(sigh)
The only reason it gets two stars is that I can’t bring myself to savage a dying breed (bookstores), even if they are corporate.

I have not actually been to the store itself. My husband realized he needed a very specific technical manual for his very big test coming up. After striking out at two local bookstores I called to see if they had it in stock. The person did not answer pleasantly and did not identify the store. I am assuming it was Barnes and Noble because when I asked for the book I was placed on hold… indefinitely. Needless to say, I hung up and took my business elsewhere. If a store cannot even answer the phones correctly or look up inventory in less than 20 minutes then I shudder to think how the in person customer service is.