Morehead — Susan Thomas is sitting at a low table, finishing lunch with her children. Around them are other children and their parents. Some of them are playing and others are reading.
The table the Thomases are sitting at is tucked between book displays in the children’s section of Coffee Tree Books, an independent bookstore in a downtown Morehead shopping center.
Luncheon over, Thomas moves to another table where a visitor lingers over a steaming cup of dark-roasted coffee. The rootsy music of the Old Crow Medicine Show drifts down from speakers in the ceiling.
This is the Fuzzy Duck, where coffee lovers were gathering when Starbucks was little more than a Seattle startup.
The Coffee Tree has been a Morehead fixture for three decades and is still prospering in a world where major book retailers are shuttering chain outlets by the dozens. Thomas’ parents, Marge and Dan, opened the coffee shop about 15 years ago when the bookstore moved from its original location.
Thomas had been in the book business in Nashville when she moved back to Kentucky six years ago; her husband, Grant Alden, is from Seattle where he had memories of a book chain there called Third Place Books.
The name, Thomas explains, denotes there are three major life arenas: home and work are two, and a third place is where people can come together. “We found that the Fuzzy Duck was starting to be that place and we wanted the bookstore to be that way, too,” she said.
Over the past few years they have tweaked the already popular store, removing a wall here and shifting a shelf there. Seating areas are sprinkled throughout the sales floor; the squashy armchairs have the sort of family room ambience that encourages curling up for a good read.
On one chilly February day, for instance, Melissa Caudill and her daughters, Kaya, 8 and Mia, 4, were snuggled in a soft chair with a picture book. “They totally encourage people to sit here with books,” Caudill said. It’s a good place for families and kids, or for people to peck on their laptops, she said.
“We want people to be comfortable here. We want them to come and hang out,” Thomas said. It’s an atmosphere, she hopes, where people can come and see their neighbors.
What they have found over the years is that Morehead has a community of avid readers who like what an independent retailer has to offer. Where mega-chains cater to best-sellers they can sell in high volume at heavy discounts, independents can provide a stage for new writers.
The Fuzzy Duck completes the hangout vibe with its menu of premium exotic coffees and baked goods. A typical day at the shop will bring young mothers, college professors, retirees and truck drivers in for a cup.
While it isn’t that much of a student hangout, the Fuzzy Duck draws in university types and townies.
The store organizes reading groups, some for adults and some for children. The adult groups include mystery and new fiction; older children have groups for the “American Girl” series and younger children have the bedtime story group.
MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2652.
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Book and coffee lovers meet at popular Morehead business
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