The Dartmouth offered a q&a with Allie Levy, a Dartmouth alumna who opened Still North Books & Bar last December in Hanover, N.H. Our favorite exchange:
Q: How has business been during the pandemic?
A: It's been crazy. We actually started out with the idea that we were going to focus entirely on the in-store experience. Last year at this time, we were getting ready to open up, and I was like, we're not going to have our website or sell books online because we're going to focus on what's going on in store, and I don't want to spread ourselves too thin. So, I thought e-commerce was going to come a little bit later. That had to change really quickly in March. In about a week, we decided that we had to start selling books online.
We got our website up and running--I had an amazing employee who helped me with that. It's been amazing to see just how the community has embraced us right off the bat. It has been challenging, and the cafe side of things is the most challenging in terms of the pandemic because we still don't feel comfortable with people eating and drinking inside. We are figuring out how to ramp back up our food offerings while staying safe, which has been a fun challenge. Hopefully soon, by mid-November, we will be introducing some food options back.