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Tombolo Books marks its five-year anniversary
In the ever-shifting universe of St. Petersburg small businesses, Tombolo Books, a 1,500-square-foot storefront on 1st Avenue S., is a 21st century success story.
The independent book retailer celebrated its fifth anniversary last week, and as co-owner Alsace Walentine mingled with the party crowd she marveled at the number of familiar faces.
“We have kids home from college who’ve been shopping with us all these years, we have the snowbirds who are back,” said Walentine, who operates Tombolo with her wife, Candice Anderson. “We have all these customers from our pop-up days who still come in. So it’s really wonderful to feel like there is a sense of community, truly – it’s not just lip service.
“It was so great to see people running into friends here. People who they didn’t necessarily know, but this other person knew of Tombolo. And then, other people I know they met at the book store, and that is where the friendship started.”
Walentine (center), Anderson (right) with Helen Levine.
Walentine and Anderson are from Asheville, N.C., where the former worked at the independent book shop Malaprops, a hub for bookies, literati, artists and hipsters. They fell in love with St. Petersburg, and after two years of pop-up Tombolo appearances in different locations (during which Walentine took classes at the Greenhouse, the city-owned business incubator), the brick-and-mortar opened, in a former hair salon space, three months before Covid-19 shut everybody down.
At the same time, Haslam’s, the city’s beloved 87-year-old independent book retailer, was (unbeknownst to anyone) entering its final days.
Corporate retailers like Barnes & Noble and Borders were thriving. Would a (very) small independent book store work in St. Pete?
“I just have so much faith in a good independent book store, because of my time at Malaprops,” Walentine said. “Seeing families with little kids grow up, and seeing people’s lives change, and how they keep coming back. And they’re part of it! It’s not just selling products – it’s like we’re really interwoven in people’s lives.”
There were, to be sure, bumpy times: At the height of the pandemic, Walentine, masked, delivered books to customers’ homes via bicycle. And the construction of a SunRunner bus stop outside Tombolo’s front door meant the end of curbside parking.
“You have to stay on your toes,” Walentine explained. “You can’t get complacent, because the world is always changing. Having a commitment to innovation, that’s another crucial aspect of running a small business. Because you don’t know the next thing coming down the road.”
Still, she was a woman with ever-increasing faith in her new hometown. Before the store opened, Walentine had done her research.
“I had a hunch it could work here, based on the arts culture that we have here. The tourism, the appreciation of nature, those are some of these essential things that I was looking at – not to mention the very strong Go Local movement that exists here in St. Pete as a really foundational thing. I think the Go Local movement is hand in hand with the arts scene, because people understand that it’s individuals that create a unique city.”
She’s particularly proud of Tombolo’s reputation as a curated store. “It’s a symbiotic relationship with our customers, because we’re really listening to what people are curious about and interested in. We curate our store based on that, rather than an algorithm, or whatever’s hot.”
They sell the popular stuff, too. “It’s like a matrix,” she said. “It’s like playing Tetris and trying to figure out how to get all the right things to keep it interesting, to have things that people didn’t expect to find, or didn’t know about at all. That’s what’s particularly gratifying, as the buyer and curator for the adult books.”
Walentine also gave kudos to her knowledgeable sales staff, the children’s and young readers department, and to the store’s robust event programming. “People can come and meet their favorite authors,” she said. “It really affects people’s lives.”
There are no plans in place to expand Tombolo – not yet, anyway – but using the five-year anniversary as a benchmark, Walentine has high hopes for 2025.
“So much of what I’ve done during these seven years is working – more working than socializing,” she laughed. “Of course, I’ve made many friendships through the work. And now that we are five years old, my personal commitment this year is just to get out more into the community, as a book store presence but also as myself.
“We had to rush, and change, and deal with Covid and all the things, so I didn’t get a chance to just live my life. So I’m seeking a little more balance this year.”
LISTEN: Arts Alive! podcast: Alsace Walentine and Candice Anderson
