Barnes & Noble

It’s not as large as the one by northgate but that means it’s not as loud or crowded by strollers either! Perfect spot for reading a book during lunch breaks :)

What’s not to love about this Barnes and Noble location? It’s HUGE, it has a Starbucks, places to chill, a good sized kid’s area with multiple play options including a train table and staff throughout the store to help you.
We popped in the other day and it turned out to be a day with promotions where you could colour an old school vinyl record cover, enter into a name that album cover contest, just to name a few activities.
The whole fam had fun and we even won a $ 5 gift card!

I’ve ordered books via phone from this location many times. I’ve been going here for over fifteen years because I’ve always had a five star experience. This review is only for the experience and service I recicieved today, 6.8.15. I was in line, it was a long line but who cares, and the polite gentleman who was working as fast as he could asked for another cashier to come up front overhead. When «Jae» (white, short hair, stripped shirt) came up front she rudely yelled in negative tone that everyone needed to swing the line the other way, that that’s why we had to wait so long, and that we should do so now, swing the line around now, move the line NOW. She repeated herself five times in thirty seconds. There was a woman with three children ahead of me and two elderly women with walkers behind me, it was completely inappropriate of this cashier to speak to them that way. A woman who was carrying a child had to say «I’m coming!» simply because we were feeling attacked by this cashier. Having been in the line, I could tell no one had cared about the wait at all and we were all perfectly fine being patient. Who can be upset while buying books? The entire mood of everyone around me changed to a more negative tone simply we were spoken to so rudely. I am absolutely shocked that such a rude person works at one of my favorite places to buy books, and I hope she doesn’t continue to ruin what is supposed to be a peaceful experience for others in the future. Again, I have always received my books on time and have always been treated with respect. I am leaving this review entirely because this woman was so completely rude and inappropriate in her approach to over 18 people who were also waiting to spend money at this location.

I just love books, the feeling I get walking into a book store and checking out all of the best sellers or classics is very relaxing and cathartic for me. I know Barnes and Noble is the «man» but, it has such an amazing selection, fantastic service and great coffee. I dig it.

Overpriced compared to Amazon but the service makes-​up for the lack of customer care online. The manager of the children’s dept. was very helpful finding just what I needed, and even recommended a few additional books. What I loved most is how she discreetly hid my selections from my 5-​yr-​old, when she realized I was gift shopping. Every accommodation was made to ensure I had a pleasurable experience and got what I was looking for. Compared to the lack of service at Borders Books, I can fully understand why B&N thrives even in this digital reading era.
Oh — and they employ former librarians, teachers, and other folks with degrees in literature who actually know their stuff!

Corporate book stores are the same as corporate dining I suppose. No art, plenty of artifice. But you know– I think it is really tough to survive as a book seller in the brick and mortar world. I am a kindle and iBook fanatic, but only because of convenience and the storage element. I really love a real book. The café here is great. Treats and coffee. The book selection is… Corporate. Lots of gift giving options here — blankets, candles, amazing hand tooled leather journals. The staff is challenging. The check out line is a slow moving and torturous joke. But it is a book store. Sometimes you just need one.

For the love of God, don’t give your hard-​earned cash to these pathetic people.
I started out at the Woodinville store yesterday morning. My boyfriend wanted to use a gift card and we were in the Woodinville area having a nice breakfast together.
While there, I purchased ‘Wild’ by Cheryl Strayed and ‘The Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery’ by Robert Kolker. The total cost for the two paperback books was $ 35. I’m accustomed to buying books used, either at Uppercase Books in Snohomish, or Half Price Books, so I was a little sticker-​shocked. Even thrift stores have a lot of good books, if you take the time to browse. But anyway, back to the story.
After I left, I drove to the Mill Creek area to visit a friend and we went shopping in Lynnwood. After talking with her about how expensive the books were, and how I could probably find both at Half Price Books or Amazon, I decided to return the books to the Lynnwood store, which is near where we were shopping. I even got an audiobook version of ‘Wild’ for free as part of a 30-​day trial of Audible on my phone, while we were driving over to the store.
My friend stayed in the car, because she had such horrible experiences with the staff at that store that she refused to even go inside. Hmm… should have been my first clue…
I walked into the store and saw three or four staff members hanging out at the Nook-​selling area. I got in line to return the books and waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. For 15 minutes! There were only two cashiers, and for some reason they were INCREDIBLY slow at ringing people up. And the employees hanging out and chatting at the Nook-​counter couldn’t be bothered to help diminish the huge line of customers. When I finally got up to the counter and told the cashier I had a return, she couldn’t even do the return and asked me to move to the other cashier.
This cashier was an ugly, old woman with a sour look on her face. I told her I wanted to return the books I had purchased only a few hours earlier. I had my receipt.
She looked at the book by Kolker and said, «Okay, this book is unsellable.»
She was flipping through it, with a wrinkled nose, judging it. So I told her, «Well, it must be sellable, it was sold to me a few hours ago.»
She said: «Yes, I can see that it was purchased in Woodinville this morning, but I can’t return a used book, I need to call my store manager.»
Okay, first of all, if the book was used, it shouldn’t have been sold to me at Woodinville. And second of all, is she trying to imply that I bought a book at Woodinville, read the WHOLE BOOK, and drove all the way to Lynnwood to return it? It’s absurd, and incredibly rude and disrespectful. I could not believe her accusatory tone. Additionally, the line behind me had only gotten longer, so she was impacting those poor souls by forcing them to wait for the store manager to show up before completing the transaction.
When the manager finally did show up, I realized she was one of the lazy women chit-​chatting around the Nook-​counter! The manager did the return and asked me why I was returning the books.
«I found this book for free on Audible,» I said.
«And as this other woman pointed out, THIS book is used and I don’t want to pay $ 18 for a used paperback.»
I took my money and left.
Oh, and when I got back in the car, my friend paused the podcast she had been listening to, and it was at the 20-​minute mark. It took 20 minutes to return two books. Ridiculous.

I love this place! I mainly love the Barns and Noble Café (Starbucks). I come here everyday after classes to study and drink lots of coffee. The folks that work at the café are fantastic and always happy, the tables in the café are always clean and plenty of room to spread your books around and work on your computer (they have free WIFI). I tend to get a lot done pertaining to school work at this place, and if I need a book, I know where to go! Great thing is, a lot of idiots tend to stay away from book stores, and that’s a plus.

I came in with a list of five books I had been recommended and was totally lost trying to find them.
Lightbulb! I went to the information desk and the lady working knew every.single.one. She toured me around, grabbing each quickly… it seemed like she had done this before. (One star is left off because she seemed a bit passive)
I settled into a comfy chair to browse these titles and she even lowered the blindes without me asking.
If it weren’t for her I would’ve probably given up and not purchased anything.

Barns and Nobel café is my favorite place to study mainly because it’s well lit and the tables are big and it’s usually very quiet compared to Starbucks for example. I gave them three stars because, first, there is only 2 outlets in the whole café, so people are usually fighting over them!
Second, their coffee suck! It tastes like warm milk! The sandwiches and the bakery items are pretty good but overpriced in my opinion!

It’s clean.
It’s well organized.
You can search online to see if they have what you want in stock.
You can put things you want that are in stock on hold online.
They do have a limited inventory.
They have a ton of magazines.
I really, really dislike them trying to upsell their membership program when there is a line of people and only 2 cashiers. I stood in line for 10 minutes yesterday when there was only one person ahead of me and both cashiers were selling memberships. One was to an elderly person who clearly did not understand what the membership was all about. That really seems like they are taking advantage to me. I almost don’t want to shop at B&N after seeing things like that. Actually, come to think of it, it is the upsell of the membership that keeps me from going to B&N when I need books. I think about the «have you heard of our membership» and then decide to buy online.

I’m a long-​time customer of this store. My kids love the children’s section, and I love the café.
I was disappointed to have my first negative experience with customer service there today. I went in set on buying a Nook HD+, their newest tablet. I had done my research online, and really just wanted to look at it in person and get a feel for it. (This would be my third Nook. I’m the renegade Nook user among Kindle readers in my book club.)
First off, the sales guy couldn’t show me a fairly basic feature I asked about. He had to call someone else to figure out how to do it. Now, I can be very forgiving of something like this. It would have been completely fine, except that as our conversation went on, he got increasingly pushy.
I asked about heavier-​duty cases than what they had on display in the store since my kids will use the tablet as well, and he said I should just buy the protection plan. For $ 40, they’ll replace it once. Um, yeah. .. no. That doesn’t really serve my needs!
I wanted the 16GB version. They were out of stock, so he tried to push the 32GB version on me. He said I would need it for video, even though I had already said we wouldn’t use it for that. I asked if it had expandable memory, and he said yes, but didn’t change his tactic. He said, «It’s only $ 30 more,» and started to attempt to bag it up for me. What? You can’t force me to pay more! And why on earth should I believe that more GBs is worth it if he doesn’t even know how to use the darn thing?
When I said I would just order it online, he called his manager and told me that she said that it was out of stock at other locations and I wouldn’t even be able to get it online. I said I would take my chances, and he got a ton more attitude. I didn’t think they worked on commission, but now I wonder. It was really off-​putting.
I checked on my smartphone while I was still in the store, and other locations had it, and the website said it would ship within 24 hours. I don’t appreciate being lied to.
I am hoping this is an isolated incident and I will continue to shop there (for lack of any other choices), but it really leaves a bad taste, unfortunately.

Barnes & Noble is clean and organized and, although I prefer to buy books used, sometimes I cannot find them at Half-​Priced books and when that is the case, and I don’t want to wait for a ‘book to ship from Amazon, I’ll go to B&N.
They are pricey though… One book I went to purchase was only available in hardcover and was $ 35 and I ended up finding it on Amazon Prime w/​free shipping for $ 17, so I ordered online. (I have purchased many books new here, but my limit is around $ 15 for a book.)
I did end up finding a book by an author I like in the discounted bin and it was $ 3.99, so that was great.
Basically, it’s nice to have a variety of book buying options and B&N is included in my list of three places (other two Half-​Priced Books & Amazon).
Also, the kid section is great and if you have little ones, they can spend an hour in there while you browse or read. I use to take my kids here when they were little. They still like it now…
Having the coffee/​treat seating area is nice, as well. We’ve enjoyed many visits which included a cookie/​beverage :)

I haven’t been in a bookstore in YEARS and this place reminds me why.
I usually buy books on Amazon but thought it’d be nice to support one of the only remaining book chains in the US. I am now boycotting B&N.
I purchased a bunch of books on the B&N website. I changed my mind and decided that I didn’t want some of them and went to return them in the store. However, apparently if you purchase books using a Paypal account, you cannot get a refund. Only a store credit. I did not recall seeing this when I checked out online. I have since gone back and still do not see this on the site when checking out. BE WARNED.
Anyway, I asked the sales associate at the store if I had any other options to get a refund. She said no. I was super irritated because I didn’t want $ 100 worth of B&N credit. I called the B&N customer service at the HQ and they said that the only way to receive a refund was to ship the books back to the warehouse. I wish the sales associate had told me that before I refunded the books for store credit. I was told to go back to the store and «unreturn» the books, then ship them back using the return label.
I spoke with the manager on the phone — and while she did offer to help, I relayed my irritation that the Paypal policy is not clearly stated on the site as well as the fact that the customer service associate at the store did not share that I could return them for a refund by shipping them back. The manager said that it was a miscommunication and apologized… but kind of backhandedly to the point where I felt like she was putting me at fault.
Anyway, I was able to get the books back but then had to drive all the way back home and ship the books out. All of that to return a few books.
Never again will I step foot in this store. AMAZON, you have my loyal business moving forward.

Not sure if store is customer-​run because I couldn’t find an employee to help me. The best they do is point me to the machine/​kiosk and tell me to search it there.
If i were a bookworm, I’d be irrate, but alas, I only buy a book once a millenium, so my frustration is minimal. But, I feel all you word readers out there looking for some assistance at this B&N.

I went to Barnes & Noble this weekend to look for the Tom Douglas’ new book «Dahlia Bakery Cookbook».
The store was an absolute zoo and there was no one on the floor to ask for help.
I waited in line at customer service. Long wait. The man who ended up helping me was nice and helpful but they were out of the books and they were on reorder. I don’t know the ins and outs of the book business but running out of a major popular new book around Christmastime doesn’t seem like a good move.
The store was just so chaotic. They need more people on the floor for customer service. I walked out without buying anything because they didn’t have what I needed. I bought my book elsewhere.
Also, they changed their return policy so you have to return a book withing 14 days to get a refund! That’s very limiting, especially when shopping for others. They should give you at least 30 days to return a book.
I used to have fond memories of shopping at B&N when I was younger but now that I know better I can’t justify shopping here anymore.
Go to Elliott Bay Books in Seattle or Powell’s in Portland. Both have decent prices and so much more soul!

The last of the chain bookstores is barely with a pulse these days. And the whole place is pushing book tablets down your throat. Prices are pretty high, too. The only books on sale are those giant coffee table books and some activity sets. This is a book store that is pushing the Nook tablet so hard, they got rid of having a service desk that is staffed, and now all you see is Nook. Well, I’m sorry, but I’m morally against reading a book on an electronic device.
I stood in line for ten minutes while the cashier had a full non book related conversation with someone. The worst was watching two employees just STAND there behind the counter chatting while a line of ten people formed behind me. It was a joke.

What I like about this place is café, general atmosphere and free wifi. :)
It is good place to get some munchies if you are waiting for somebody. And if you stop here often get Barnes and Nobles membership card.
Sometimes it is very busy here, but public is pretty intelligent and polite.

I’ve been a long time fan of Barnes and Nobles, especially once they got into e-​books and Borders folded.
This one in particular however I have a major issue with. They can’t be bothered to provide a place to lock up a bicycle, but the manager complained about my having the bike in the shop. When I asked whether there was a place that I could lock it up, she gave me a very condescending, «I’m asking you respectfully to take your bike out of the store.» Which given that she didn’t answer my question was hardly respectful.
She made the excuse that the store is not obligated to provide a place to lock up bikes, but if you ask me they have to choose: let bikes in the store, or provide a place to lock them up. I don’t own a car, the bike is my main mode of transportation, and as a result I can’t shop at that store, not that I’d want to with such an obnoxious manager.
And I love bookstores.

B&N + StarBucks= wifi refuge. Busy location @ normal times, and doubly busy corner during the holidays. As expected, lots of 50% clearance sales during this time of the year. Good to hang and watch the NWest rain through the window while doing my very very favorite thing – Unilocal (OK, I would rather do 10 km, but it’s pssn raining hard).
Standard fare for a B&N, and the only way you can tell you are in Lynnwood and not in San Jose B&N is that the Images of America books here are all about «Fort Lawton», «Shelton», «Vashon Island», «Seattle», etc and in San Jose, it’s about «San Jose», «the Rose Garden», «Campbell» etc. Other than that, it is cookie-​cutter.
I like this location because it is off I-​5, it is near Alderwood Mall, Babies R Us, Best Buys, Old Spaghetti Factory and all other mega-​giganta-​super-​stores are near by and I can park a giganta Ford F-​250 full bed truck in this lot without feeling self-​conscious about it.