Diane Meredith, owner of The Dusty Bookshelf, confirmed today that the store will be reopening this spring. It has been nearly two years since the business was affected by a fire and has been completely gutted and structurally rebuilt.
Because of your loyalty, support, and general love for books, we wanted you to know that after two long and difficult years, the shop keys are back in our hands. This spring, we’re reopening The Dusty Bookshelf at the corner of Manhattan & Moro.
We’ll be totally honest with you: it’s not going to be easy, and it’s not going to be quite the same. Our team is now faced with an unfinished shell of the old bookstore, a large rent increase, and lots of hard decisions to make in a short amount of time. But we’re rolling up our sleeves, summoning up our last bits of energy and funds, and doing our very best to bring the bookstore back to life.
In the coming weeks, we’ll be leaning on the community we love to serve. Whether it’s by donating books or supplies, swinging a hammer or carrying a box of books, or simply giving us a high five when we need it the most, we could use the help. We’ll post a list of needs and a rough schedule for putting the shop back together, and we’d be so grateful if you’d join us for a good ol’-fashioned book drive and community bookstore build.
Thank you so much for the love, loyalty, concern, support, and care you’ve shown us. The last couple of years have been rough, and we’ll do our best to make it up to you. Now let’s bring back the books.
Best,
The Dusty Bookshelf
The store located at 700 N. Manhattan Ave. was completely destroyed by a fire in the middle of the night on March 2, 2017, that started from a self-heating floor finish, fire investigators said. The business has operated from this location since 1991.
Two other businesses located adjacent to the bookstore, Varsity Donuts and T-shirt shop Thread, had smoke and water damage. Since the fire, the building has a had new roof built, all new windows installed and more. Roger and Sherilyn Bender of Sunrise Beach, Missouri, own the Aggieville building that has been in their family since the 1940s.
