Chalk up a win for the book nerds. Seven months after the owners of Folio Books in Noe Valley unceremoniously decided to close the 24th Street shop, former manager Katerina Argyres has opened a new one in the space, Noe Valley Books, just in time for the holiday shopping season.
The revival came together with the help of a crowdfunding campaign that enlisted more than 700 donors, raising a whopping $150,000. Even by Argyres’ admission, the sum was ambitious. “I got the advice that if you start a little too high, people will get, like, intimidated,” she said while ringing up a customer on the second day of business. “But I need the neighborhood to know what I need.”
If such an endeavor feels quixotic, well, Argyres’ calling is books. Having worked in bookstores since she was a teen, when a Marin County Barnes & Noble manager noticed her hanging out a lot, she simply cannot get away. Now, with the help of the neighborhood, she has a bookstore of her own.
Excitement to donate was so high that Argyres inadvertently nudged friends to chip in after they’d already opened their wallets. “They were like, ‘Yeah, hon, we donated!’” she recalled.
The store’s shelves came from the former owner of Alexander Book Company, whose 32-year run in SoMa wound down in March 2023. Argyres’ uncles gave them a glow-up, allowing the shelving of tens of thousands of titles to commence in anticipation of a soft opening — along with the torrent of used books that showed up once Noe Valley’s literate residents got word.
With the success of the crowdfunding campaign, Argyres was able to rehire all three Folio employees — who, like her, leaped at the opportunity. “I love selling books,” said one of them, Andrew McIntyre. “This team’s the best team ever, but the response from the community was absolutely phenomenal.”
When Folio shuttered, its five owners gave little indication as to why. “We hope you will respect our privacy during this difficult time as we and our staff say goodbye for what has been our home away from home for the past 10 years,” they wrote in a newsletter. But the assumption that small booksellers are rapidly going the way of the fax machine may be mistaken. Post-Covid, independents are thriving. Even Barnes & Noble is making a comeback, reopening stores across the country — Amazon be damned.
Even during Thursday’s rain, business at Noe Valley Books was brisk. Customers thumbed through Timothy Snyder’s “On Freedom,” the Atlas Obscura guide “Wild Life,” and “The Official Bob Ross Coloring Book,” or browsed walls of genre fiction and children’s books. Recent national political events, Argyres said, have deepened the post-pandemic hunger for escapist fare and the hybrid category known as “romantasy.”
“We love literary fiction and nonfiction but also really want to make a safe space for people who want queer romances or a cozy fantasy that doesn’t have to do with battle,” Argyres said. “And maybe you just want dragons drinking tea.”
Amidst the Thursday downpour, neighbor Terry Karl was visiting with her dog, Mico. She was flush with triumph at having just received a human rights award; the professor emerita in political science at Stanford had spent decades to secure justice in the case of six murdered Jesuit priests in El Salvador. What’s more, it was her and her husband’s birthday, so she was eager to shop. “I love this bookstore,” she said, pivoting to Argyres to ask for recommendations for boys aged 4 and 6.
At one point Thursday, Noe Valley Books contained as many dogs as people. This appeared to be almost by design. “The bookstore is just a front to get dogs in here,” Argyres joked. “It’s all I want.”