Steamy Lit is relocating its Deerfield Beach, Fla., bookstore to 701 NW Fifth Ave., Unit 1061, in the Thrive Art District, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The company also operates a store in Tampa. A grand opening celebration at the new space is set for this Saturday, October 4. The bookstore launched in Deerfield Beach two years ago, but owner Melissa Saavedra told the Sun Sentinel it was time to be in a different environment.
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| Melissa Saavedra at Steamy Lit in Deerfield Beach. | |
"I actually live in Deerfield, which is why we started there, but Thrive Art District has a wonderful community of artists and businesses that complement us really well," Saavedra said. "We are really excited to do collaborations with our neighbors."
Jonathan Fish, Thrive Art District co-owner, added that Steamy Lit is needed in the 5.3-acre creative hub in the heart of the city, which is home to galleries, studios, shops, a brewery, and other businesses: "We met Melissa and we thought her concept is really amazing. She gives the authors a place to go to and creates a kind of a community around it. I'm looking forward to people from the city, from the county, and even tourists coming there and seeing new books they may not be able to get in your regular bookstore and getting that experience of what old bookstores used to be like."
Saavedra launched the Steam Box, a quarterly book-subscription service, in 2021. "We gradually started doing pop-ups, book clubs and community meetups. At the time, I was living in California after I got out of the Navy. In 2023, we established our nonprofit foundation, Steamy Lit Foundation, with our first romance book convention, Steamy Lit Con, and then we opened our first bricks-and-mortar in Deerfield at the end of 2023."
Steamy Lit Tampa started as a pop-up in the summer of 2024, and the permanent store opened last March, the Sun Sentinel wrote, adding that plans are in the works to open a store in Miami Springs by the end of the year.
"I grew up in Miami, so I am really excited for this," Saavedra said. "I grew up using the [Miami-Dade] library system so it feels very full circle." She described the environment at Steamy Lit stores as "inclusiveness, fun! With a dash of spice, and safe. A place where everyone belongs, a place where you will find yourself reflected in the stories, a space where you can be."