Former Booksellers Plan Opening in L.A.'s Echo Park

The 1,700-square-foot space in a 1930s building has "shined up" concrete floors, exposed brick, and custom shelving, as well as some fixtures from Dutton's.

Although Claudia Colodro and Liz Garo had left bookselling for other careers, neither could stay away for good. Colodro was a bookseller at Dutton's North Hollywood before leaving to get her master's in social work, and Garo, a former Book Soup staffer, became a talent booker at an L.A. music venue. Now the friends have pooled their collective experience to open STORIES, a new and used general bookstore with an outdoor patio and cafe in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. The store will hold its opening kickoff party on Saturday, November 15.

"We hope that STORIES will contribute to the Echo Park neighborhood and that it will cater to both the long-standing Latino community and the new hipster demographic," said Garo. "I think the used books will be a big bonus for everyone."

The opening party will feature appetizers, baked goods, and coffee from the cafe menu, as well as on-site silk screening by the Hit & Run art collective, which will create unique STORIES book bags for guests.

Colodro, who worked at Dutton's for six years, said that STORIES would draw on the format of the former North Hollywood store. "We'll carry new and used books mixed together," she explained. "We'll have some gift items and lots of greeting cards, and a big children's section." STORIES plans to offer a wide range of sections, including fiction, L.A. and California, LGBT, crafts, and music and pop culture, but customers will ultimately set the tone for inventory. "We'll see what people want and let them direct us into developing our specialties."

The 1,700-square-foot space in a 1930s building has "shined up" concrete floors, exposed brick, and custom shelving, as well as some fixtures from Dutton's. "It's raw but warm," said Colodro. "We have one really beautiful long wall of continuous shelving, which is wood on the outside and has metal shelving. We have the cash register wrap from Dutton's. It's a nice mix of old and new." She credited architect Tom Robertson with designing the look of the store.

STORIES plans to serve the busy Echo Park neighborhood on several fronts -- as an active community-focused bookstore with lots of events and free WiFi, as well as a cafe serving coffee drinks, baked good, and sandwiches and salads with an middle eastern slant. On an outdoor patio, the booksellers plan to create a "beautiful oasis."

Colodro returned to bookselling because she missed her Dutton's days, as well as working with owner and mentor Davis Dutton. "Working at Dutton's was the best job I ever had," she said. "What I took from Dave was that you could ... make books your life, if you somehow figured out the right method to do that. Social work was great, and in a way this is a kind of social work. It's giving something to the community." --Karen Schechner