New York State is rich in history, particularly surrounding the period around the colonial United States. In 1777, Kingston, a town at the intersection of Rondout Creek and the Hudson River, was designated the state’s capital. The British later burned it down on their march after the Battle of Saratoga, but rebuilt over the years and in the 19th century became an economic hub with the discovery of natural concrete. However, the town is more than a footnote in New York’s history, as it offers places like Rough Draft Bar & Books for people to enjoy a sense of community.
The bookstore located at the historic four corners of the town operates as a bookstore and cafe during the day, serving Counter Culture Coffee to patrons as they peruse a selection of new books or attend community events, but it transforms into a bar offering local ciders, wines, and New Zealand-style pies for those looking for a bit of night time entertainment.
The flexibility of the business model might be part of why Rough Draft Bar & Books offers a feel-good experience anyone can enjoy.
The Feel Good Elements of Rough Draft
Any bibliophile knows the feeling of walking into a well-organized bookshop and immediately feeling their curiosity perk up; there are always more books to read than there is time to do it, but being able to occupy the space with so many volumes at once makes it feel like a more achievable goal, and Rough Draft is no different in this respect. However, it goes further than relying solely on a love of books to create that sense of community and connection that drives businesses like it to succeed.
The Historic Angle
Like Valley Green Inn and The Inn at Grace Winery, Rough Draft’s location in historic locations offers a great way of differentiating itself from other booksellers, because it offers a similar feel to European shops when occupying it. The bare tile floors, fieldstone walls, and bare wood plank ceilings can add to the escapism someone experiences while enjoying a novel, working on a piece, or trying to find their next read.
The Epicurean Delights
While there’s history to add a unique atmosphere to the experience, it’s not always sufficient to ensure that customers enjoy themselves enough to come back, but the addition of a wine and cider bar can diversify the experience enough to warrant a second look once someone has bought their latest addition to their To-Be-Read pile.
Coffee and tea have often been mainstays of bookstores, but few tap into the other loves of literary minds in the form of cocktails, great wine, and mocktails (for those who are sober-curious or recovering). The Rough Draft Bar & Books takes a step towards engaging the whole of the literary community while leaning into locally sourced goods with their wines and ciders.
Growth Lessons From Rough Draft
Far from being an initial sketch of a story, Rough Draft Bar & Books has fairly robust lessons for most businesses wishing to sustain their growth in a competitive environment.
A Different Take On Innovation
Every organization recognizes the need to innovate to stay ahead of the competition, and in many cases, that takes the form of launching new products or expanding offerings through new partnerships. For bookstores, that used to mean expanding the selection of books, but with the shift in the industry prompted by Amazon, more and more organizations are leaning into customer experience as a new way of innovating and attracting increased commerce from their patrons.
Rough Draft does follow the accepted wisdom of independent bookstores, but its introduction of a local wine and cider bar takes the more traditional tenets of innovation and indie bookselling and expands on them. Literature and liquor are often complementary interests for people, but they aren’t necessarily complementary as product lines; instead, Rough Draft has delved into two separate markets that are loosely connected so that customers have more reasons to engage with the business than if they were simply a wine bar or a bookstore.
Lightweight Approaches to Tech
In the modern age, there are plenty of tools businesses can invest in to streamline processes or increase ROI, but it can easily feel overwhelming when trying to find the right one for you. It also makes it tempting to believe that the only way you can sell is by investing heavily in technology to do it.
Rough Draft decides to take a different approach, one that many booksellers tend to use as the basis of driving sales: rather than trying to reach everyone, which would require lots of technological infrastructure to drive ecommerce sales, they curate their experience for their community. It means less data about the bookselling market, but it does mean that the quality of the data for their customers is far better and cleaner, especially since it stems from an authentic interest in maintaining contact with the brand after the completion of the purchase.
However, that doesn’t mean they don’t use technology to try to work more markets (they still have Bookshop.org and Libro.fm storefronts, for example), but it’s not the priority that some businesses make it. That may mean fewer sales overall, but a higher quality of customer relationships, which translates to higher customer lifetime value as a result.
The Bottom Line
Independent bookstores are a fraught business model with thin margins in a world that prizes convenience, speed, and cost controls over investment in the arts and local community institutions. However, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to survive, and even thrive, alongside the competition, especially when you consider different approaches to getting new titles in front of customers than booksellers have used in the past.
Using events, creating spaces that are geared to providing quality customer experiences rather than volume, and tailoring selection to community needs are all useful tools for retail organizations to grow, but Rough Draft expanded that model to include innovative applications of time-tested strategies.
However, if you’re not really looking for lessons in business and find yourself around Kingston, then it may be worth stopping by for a cup of coffee or a glass of wine; the experience will be sure to refill your cup for the following day.
Before You Go…
This is part of a series of articles highlighting businesses operating in the food and beverage space as part of an initiative to share feel good stories coming from local businesses. There's a few things you can do to support this initiative:
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