Last weekend I had the pleasure of spending a gloriously lazy Saturday afternoon at the Book Grocer bookstore. What was so special about this experience you ask? The Book Grocer, Northcote is not only a book store but also a café and fully licensed (yep, that's right, there's a wine bar people).
Alcoholic tendencies aside, the Book Grocer is a warm and friendly place where the books are amazingly cheap and the range seems endless; stocking genres from Literary Theory to Cookbooks, Social Sciences to Archaeology and much more. Add to that a well priced café & bar serving yummy biscuits and cakes and you've hit the literary jackpot!
The ambiance of the store is charming with a choice of comfortable couches, café tables or bright red bar stools to relax in while browsing both menus and books. The lighting is nice and warm as are the staff who are always happy to chat with their customers as if they were old friends. And once I started chatting to them I found even more to adore about the 'Grocer; not only do they hold their own book club (third week of every month) but they've also been known to hold literary speed-dating –bring your favourite book and spend a few minutes discussing it and anything else with around 15 prospective dates – a novel idea if ever there was one.
So go ahead fellow readers and feeders, get down to the Grocer one Saturday arvo; sip some fine Genovese coffee, treat yourself to a lime syrup and blueberry cake and find a book to really match your tastes.
P.S. I never did try the wine, but I do have some free time this Sunday.
