posted on 24 Mar 2019

Button & Bear, Shrewsbury

It’s been a while since I last went to Shrewsbury and I was delighted to find that a new dedicated independent children’s bookshop, Button & Bear, had opened in Castle Street – just a hop, skip and jump from the main rail station.

It seems that the shop opened back in 2016 but when I discovered that it had been around for a while it came as a bit of a surprise because it still felt very new and I got the impression that it was still a venue trying to establish its identity. In addition to the children’s books, the shop offers a café and, I gather, a downstairs room that can be used for events and storytelling.

The shop emphasises its family/parent-friendly credentials – there are dedicated feeding and baby-changing facilities – but I was struck by the fact that I wasn’t easily able to say whether this is a café with books or a bookshop with café facilities. You may not think it matters which description is most accurate but I’m not so sure - when it comes to establishing a clear identity or USP this might have some significance.

But clearly it hasn’t affected business too badly yet – two or more years on and they seem to be doing well enough, I’m delighted to say. When I popped in on a Saturday mid-morning there were plenty of customers for coffee and books and clearly many of them were well known to the staff and that suggests plenty of repeat custom.

Space is limited for the books because of the café facilities and so the stock is very mainstream – which isn’t a criticism but an observation. The decision to either go for a pretty safe stock or to innovate and look for things you’re not necessarily going to get in Waterstones is a difficult one for any bookshop and I totally understand why they might go for the least dangerous option.

Because we buy such a lot of children’s books we’re always on the look-out for books that we didn’t know existed and I can’t honestly say this is the sort of shop I’d go back to for that kind of thing. But having said that, I wish them well and I hope they continue to be successful.

 

Terry Potter

March 2018