Inkwell Booksellers Company hosted its grand opening celebration last weekend at 426 Hennepin Ave E in Minneapolis, Minn., featuring Girl Scout cookies, an Alchemy Permanent Jewelry pop-up, giveaways and author talks. The Minnesota Daily reported that "after a decade of thinking about owning a bookstore and two years of planning, Elizabeth Foster finally showed Inkwell Booksellers Company to the public."
"We want people to feel welcome," she said. "We want to have those interactions with people on a daily basis and not just be someplace that you walk in and out of."
Foster noted that she chose the location in Northeast neighborhood because it is walkable and there are a lot of small shops, grocery stores, restaurants, great bike lanes and lots of foot traffic, but no bookstore. She added that having a coffee shop with a seating area inside the bookstore was crucial to enhancing the customer experience.
"It's been hard to get the words to explain what things would look and feel like," Foster said. "Being able to show everyone the physical space and having experienced what I have had in my brain for so long is really exciting."