Founder of Haven Used Books, Britney Taylor was born in California but moved to Pampa and hasn’t left since. The book store idea came about from Taylor’s abundance of books at her own house.
“I like reading, and collecting books, I inherited that from my grandfather,” Taylor said. “My husband was getting tired of me housing so many books at our house and wanted me to find a way to get rid of them. So Haven Used Books was born.”
Throughout her life, Taylor has always read, books have always been a big part of who she is. “Knowledge is power. I always read because you can learn so much,” Taylor said. “I always wanted to have a library for my books and for people. My grandfather passed away and I got all his books, I took a Uhaul and filled it as high as I could and didn’t get all of the books.”
After settling on the idea of opening up a place, the search for where began. After making a post onto a Facebook group, the feedback was in good favor of a used book store.
“I knew this was something I wanted to do, but I needed community feedback first,” Taylor said. “I got a lot of people wanting something like this or even just offering to donate books or things to get the store started.”
Taylor who works at the Gray County Jail, spends all her time either at work, with her kids, or now opening the store to the public to come and shop or to simply just hang out.
“I want this to be a safe space, for whatever someone wants it to be,” Taylor said. “Whatever someone may need out of a space like this, I want to offer. This wouldn’t have been able to happen without the support and help of the community. So I really, really want people to come hang out here and just feel space.”
Along with the help of Taylor, her stepmother Tomi Sieber is in the shop on mornings when they are opened. Through the process of setting up all the books and organizing them, the store has already started to fulfill its desire to offer a coffee shop vibe to people.
“We’ve already got some coffee makers for the community,” Taylor said. “I am excited about that part because it’s a cool vibe to offer to anyone that comes in here. We only have two coffee pots right now but we did just get an espresso maker and that’s is open to anyone that comes in here to shop or to just hang out.”
When searching for a place to open the store, a Facebook post about the suites popped up for Taylor. “I saw it and thought okay this may work,” Taylor said. “So I reached out and asked what they had that would work for a book store and we looked at this one. For now, this is all out of my pocket, I haven’t taken any kind of loan or help. I just want to make this become any kind of cool space people want it to be.”
The store had a soft opening on August 15, and provided a chance for people to come in and see what Taylor had been working on.
“The opening was good, I was pleased,” Taylor said. “We had a good amount of people come in that day and we didn’t get a lot of advertising out before.”
Only being opened for a few weeks, the store has had a steady flow of traffic throughout being open. Taylor jokes that as long as she makes rent, she’s happy.
“This is what I want to do, I’m surrounded by what I want,” Taylor said. “As long as the bills get paid, and people enjoy what we do, I’m cool with it.”
The plans for what can be done with Haven Bookstore is far from limited. With many plans for the future, the store plans to convert one of the rooms into a hang out room with furniture however it may come about.
“I want to offer a place to do book clubs, or even craft things,” Taylor said. “I want to do things to give back to the community because they helped me start this.”
To find out more information, or hours of operation visit them on Facebook The Haven Bookstore.
