Tacoma has a new bookstore. In age of Amazon, its owners believe the gamble will pay off
Meredith and Brian Kenney are no strangers to people questioning their business decisions. They’ve heard it all before, and — so far, at least — have always managed to prove the naysayers wrong.
Roughly 17 years ago, the married couple opened Hi-Voltage Records in Tacoma, a new and used record store originally located about a block from the corner of Sixth Avenue and South Anderson Street, where it now resides. Brian was a rock guitarist known regionally for his ‘90s band Lazy Susan. Meredith had a background in bookkeeping. Together, they decided to combine their passions and talents into a business that has succeeded where plenty of others have failed.
Now they’re at it again, this time with a bookstore.
In the year 2021.
No, really.
“That’s all I own is books, records and guitars,” said Brian Kenney, 58, from behind the counter at Hi-Voltage, which recently doubled its commercial space and debuted a selection of roughly 2,600 new titles. “On paper, you can say it’s kind of crazy. But when I opened the record store in 2005, record stores were dying, daily. I’ve always known that wasn’t true, and there was always going to be some market for (records). It’s what I believed in, so I just kind of went with what I believe in. … Same thing with books. I’ve always wanted to have a bookstore.”
“You can download anything, and you can buy anything online, but people get a feeling when they walk into the record store, just like the same thing when you walk into a bookstore,” Brian Kenney continued. “That’s kind of what we do.”
Walking into Hi-Voltage these days does feel different. To your right, the store’s sizable collection of vinyl still waits for customers to paw through, but to the left a growing inventory of books makes the store feel like a destination for the whole family. It’s the kind of place that a guy like me — a middle-aged man with an affinity for plenty of things that can seem antiquated, like aging Seattle rock bands and words printed on paper — could easily spend a rainy afternoon.
But the unavoidable economic question persists: Will it work?
Tacoma is already home to a small stable of beloved book stores — like King’s and Park Avenue Books — but there’s little question that getting into the brick-and-mortar business in the age of Amazon and online shopping requires a leap of faith.
Last week, Meredith Kenney said she was confident. After a soap-and-pottery store closed next door earlier this year, the Kenneys knew they could use the extra square footage, she said. Before long, they settled on a business plan that included books. The expanded store — which also sells T-shirts, posters and DVDs — opened on Black Friday.
Meredith Kenney said she’s particularly excited about the selection of children’s books the store offers and believes the record store’s existing customer base will naturally carry over. If people love vinyl, she suggested, there’s a good chance they also like hardbacks and paperbacks. The store has more shelves waiting to be added, she noted, and hopes to soon incorporate used books into the offerings.
“This was not a long, thought-out, meticulously planned adventure. But it came together so easily for us because we had a business already going, which is what allowed us to be able to take a little bit of a risk,” Meredith Kenney said. “There are some things, in life, that I think just won’t go away. I think books and music will always be a part of people’s lives.”
Larry Jezek, the 65-year-old co-owner of the Tacoma Book Center near Freighthouse Square, agrees with the sentiment. Jezek has been in business for nearly 37 years and has seen book stores come and go in Tacoma. He remains adamant there will always be a market for what they have to offer. It’s precisely what you’d expect him to say, considering his store — which he’s described as the largest used books store in Washington — offers roughly half a million titles.
When asked about the future of the printed word in Tacoma, Jezek often harkens back to the invention of the lightbulb. At the time, the candle’s days likely seemed numbered, he suggests.
“One hundred, 150 years later, there are still candle stores,” Jezek says. “Because they give you what electric light can’t.”
Still, that’s not to say it’s an easy racket, Jezek acknowledges. Selling new books, in particular, can be difficult, thanks to what he describes as “the dark times of Bezos and Kindles and all of that.” For a small store, it can be impossible to compete with an online behemoth that can sell books for a fraction of the price, he said.
It’s a tale we all know too well, which is what makes rooting for Hi-Voltage’s success so easy.
Everyone likes a good underdog — or scrappy hero defying long odds — and that’s exactly the kind of story Meredith Kenney is planning on writing with her store’s new venture.
“Especially with COVID over the last two years, I think that having an avenue to take you someplace else and to join a different world or explore different places through writing is even more important than ever,” Kenney said.
“That’s something you just can’t replace online.”
This story was originally published December 8, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
