Opening late this year or early next year, Bookends: Literature and Libations will be a great resource for books about Florida and by Florida authors. Bookends’ future home, at 2208 E Second Avenue in Ybor City, is in the middle of a major renovation that will include a commercial kitchen, allowing the bookstore to offer customers baked goods, coffee, beer, and wine.
Actually, “major” may be an understatement for the work required.
“The reason it’s taking so long is that we are restoring a bungalow that’s over 100 years old,” owner Teresa Rodriguez told What Now on Tuesday. Rodriguez owns Bookends in partnership with Laurie Rodriguez. “And it had 100 years worth of termite damage. We’ve had to redo a lot of things.”
To help with the project, Bookends applied for (and was awarded) the Hillsborough County Historic Preservation Challenge Grant and the City of Tampa’s CRA Facade Improvement Grant. Rodriguez said the building’s facade renovation is currently underway and Bookends has applied again to the Historic Preservation Challenge Grant.
“We completely redid the foundation and put on a new roof, but because we want to do the commercial kitchen, we’re going to have to completely redo the HVAC, electric, and plumbing,” Rodriguez said. “We thought the foundation work was expensive, but it’s nothing like what we’re looking at for this next phase, so we’ve applied once again. We’re keeping our fingers crossed.”
In order to raise money—and to get started on being a book resource to the community—Bookends will be setting up tables on Saturdays at the Ybor Market. It’s also holding several special events. Bookends will participate in the Happy Birthday Tampa: Walking Tour & Birthday Party, as part of the City of Tampa’s Archives Awareness week, July 9-15. Be sure to come and support this valuable local business at The Bricks (1327 E Seventh Ave.) on July 15.
Bookends shared the following information about the event:
Celebrate the 136th Birthday of Tampa with a walking tour and birthday party! At 10:30 a.m., historian and author, Sarah McNamara, will lead attendees through Ybor City as she tells the history of the community’s past and present. The walking tour will end with a birthday celebration, which will begin at 11:30 a.m. The birthday party will include a discussion by McNamara about Tampa memories, interactive activities for attendees, and, of course, cake! Bookends, the new and independent bookstore of Ybor, will be on site with copies of McNamara’s new book, Ybor City: Crucible of the Latina South, available for signing. This event is free and open to the public.
Another Bookends special event, planned for this fall, is an author talk with Alicia Thompson, author of Love in the Time of Serial Killers. Thompson will be at Six Ten Brewing on September 19 from 6:30 to 8 p.m. to talk about her book (which comes out August 1) and sign copies.
“Most importantly,” Rodriguez told What Now, “we want everyone to know how grateful we are for the support of the City of Tampa, Hillsborough County, local business (Tampa Bay Rum Company, Six Ten Brewing, and c. 1949), authors, and everyone that has come out to our events to support us!”
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