'We love this community': Sidetrack Bookshop expanding after successful first 2 years in Royal Oak

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(Photo: Sidetrack Bookshop)

ROYAL OAK, Mich. (FOX 2) - What started as a plan to open an independent bookstore in Florida a few years ago morphed into creating a Metro Detroit bookshop that quickly became a beloved spot for book lovers – and it doesn't stop there.

Just a couple of months after celebrating its two-year anniversary in downtown Royal Oak, Sidetrack Bookshop is now gearing up to expand.

Sidetrack's roots

"Independent bookstores are having a resurgence and have been really for the last four or five years. But for us, I think it really was a little bit of a pandemic baby, so to speak," Sidetrack co-owner Jenny Carney said.

Carney said the story started while her family, who is from Metro Detroit, was spending time with her parents in Florida during the Covid pandemic.

She and her wife, Jen Brown, noticed that there weren't independent bookstores around where her parents lived. That observation coupled with the burnout that they were feeling during the pandemic led to the couple exploring the possibility of opening a bookstore in Florida. That idea continued to nag at Carney as they returned to Michigan, and she began doing research.

"We were just caught up with this idea of opening a bookstore, and we get back to Michigan, and I went down a rabbit hole," Carney said.

The focus on Florida shifted, though, when the couple's son said he didn't want to leave his best friend to move to Florida. That comment spurred a change of thinking.

"Wait a second - maybe we need to open a bookstore in Royal Oak or, you know, around here," she said. "And it kind of snowballed from there."

Carney said she began speaking to family members about her plan before asking a Royal Oak residents Facebook group how they felt about the idea of a new bookstore downtown.

"The response in that group was just unbelievable. It was amazing," she said.

As the wheels started turning, the couple learned that a building Carney's parents own downtown - a space where Carney's mother operated a plant shop back in the 1970s - was going to have an opening soon.

"It was like all of these things just started clicking," she said.

And with that, Sidetrack Bookshop became a reality.

Behind Sidetrack's success

Carney said the plan was to give Sidetrack two years and see how it went; Carney and Brown quickly learned that it would work out.

"Almost immediately we were wildly exceeding all of our expectations and plans," she said.

Carney said an important aspect of Sidetrack is that, beyond being a place to buy books, it brings people together.

When Carney and Brown were digging into the idea of opening a bookshop, they visited other Michigan bookstores. On one of those trips to Source Booksellers in Detroit, Source owner Janet Webster Jones sat Carney down and taught her the "three things that make independent bookstores successful" – curation, community, and convening.

"The idea is when you bring people together, you're bringing like-minded people together, whether it's you're having a conversation with somebody that walks into the bookstore, and you find that you both love a particular subset of fantasy books or whatever, you're creating community through our book fairs, our book clubs, all of those things in person," Carney said. "And also you are sharing the values - the local values. We're giving back to our schools. We are doing book fairs in the schools. We share those values."

Community has been a driving force behind Sidetrack from the start. Carney mentioned a time the community showed up for the business when a protest was directed at the bookstore's drag queen story time event in March 2023, less than a year after Sidetrack opened.

"People were making all these horrific threats online, and instead what happened was a thousand people came out to support," she said.

And it's that community and the connections built between the bookshop and people that keep customers coming back.

Being a small bookshop, Sidetrack's employees have been able to connect with its customers, Carney said, noting that a big part of the job is knowing which books customers will like and getting those books to them.

"It's intimate, and it's creating community," Carney said. "It's unique to independent bookstores and someplace small like we are. We can do that. And I think that it's figuring out what your community wants and values and being able to meet those needs. And that seems to be the secret sauce."

Growing Sidetrack

The bookstore recently revealed that The Caboose, a bookshop with a focus on children's books, is in the works just a few doors down from Sidetrack.

Carney said she has always wanted more space for Sidetrack, so when the space that currently houses Inkcourage became available, the owners knew it was time to grow.

"I just kept wanting more space so that we could introduce more people to more books, really almost from the beginning," she said, adding that currently it's sometimes hard to showcase children's books because they are so wide and take up so much space. The Caboose will help alleviate this issue.

When asked why they made the decision to expand in Royal Oak rather than open a second location somewhere else to reach another community, she said they love where they are and see a need for the business there.

"We love this community," Carney said. "This community is clearly hungry for the store, so I think it’s a perfect place, and the space became available, and so, here we are."

Though The Caboose will have a focus on books for young readers, the expansion will also allow for Sidetrack to carry more adult titles as well.

Carney said the goal is for The Caboose to open at 220 W 4th St. this November.

Keep up with updates on The Caboose here.