By Faith Zochowski
Studying, drinking coffee, and reading books are all typical activities for college students. Grounds for Thought and Novel Blends are two locations located in downtown Bowling Green where students can go to participate in these pastimes.
Grounds for Thought owners Kelly and his wife Laura Wicks opened the doors to their coffee shop and bookstore in October of 1989 and just celebrated 33 years of business. His family has lived in the area since the 1970s and wanted to bring their business to an area that is familiar.
The idea for the shop came from years of family travel and discovering bookstores, coffeeshops, and places where they liked to hang out as a family.
The business started small with only about 1,200 square feet and about 7,000 used books. Grounds for Thought has grown to 7,000 square feet and 250,000 books. They are now the largest used book store between Columbus, Ohio and Ann Arbor, Michigan. In addition to used books, they also sell used comics and records.
Novel Blends is a new bookstore and coffee shop to the downtown area which opened in September of 2021. Owner Michael Stoepler of Toledo runs the business with the help of his son Sean and wife Shelly.
The focus of their family projects has always been to help others, which was seen through their nonprofit organization that offered art, music, and dance therapy to soldiers, children, women, and many others. After COVID put a halt to people participating in events through the organization, they decided to help others in opening a book and coffee business.
Selling books was Stoepler’s initial intention, but coffee was introduced by his daughter who used to work at Barnes and Noble. He said the addition of that aspect has helped their business a great deal.
Novel Blends features lesser known and local authors that focus mainly on fiction. They have an additional biography section and children’s section.
Stoepler understands the convenience of shopping online or at large retailers for books, so he wants to appeal to a different audience by featuring authors people may have never heard of.
“It introduces people I think to a whole world of writers that they might not be used to,” said Stoepler.
Grounds for Thought also must compete with large corporations, but they are successful regardless of those companies because the shop is still seen as a destination location.
“I think one of the beauties of a used book store is that sometimes you can go in looking for a book, but I’ve found over the years it seems like the books often find you,” Wicks said.
Like Novel Blends, Wicks also features local authors at his store where they also do readings and signings of their books. Last year, they worked with an illustration class through the university and sold the student’s comic books for a weekend.
Wicks enjoys being downtown and surrounded by college students.
“The university as a whole brings a lot of positive energy and creativity to the whole community, not just to Grounds. They help to give Bowling Green its unique character,” he said.
Stoepler also enjoys seeing students come in and study and loves introducing readers to new authors and styles of writing. Novel Blends offers comfortable chairs and places to work in the shop. Stoepler’s hope is for people to be there as long as it takes to do their work and be comfortable while doing it.
Wicks shared that Grounds for Thought is also not just a coffee shop and bookstore but a platform to do lots of events, concerts, club meetings, and places to study.
“Whether you are four, 40, or 80 – hanging with friends, playing games, socializing, reading – those are all things that everyone has in common,” he said.
Both shops have events planned for the holiday season. Novel Blends will be hosting singing groups and will be open more hours. They are alo hosting a Holiday Wreath Workshop on Nov. 26 at 4:30 p.m.
Grounds for Thought will hold their 18th annual Holiday Boutique on Saturday, Dec. 3 from 10-4 p.m. It is a local arts and crafts show that brings in dozens of local artists from visual art to multimedia and is a place to find unique gifts for an affordable $15-$25 range.
“People are just generally busy and engaged and active and in good moods so it’s always a fun time to be doing business,” Wicks said of the holiday season.
For more information on all things coffee and books at the locations, visit the Novel Blends Facebook page and Grounds for Thought website.
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