By Lizzie Kipp
Campus Editor
Email: [email protected]
Small businesses are the backbone of the economy. They offer a sense of community that corporate businesses cannot. Unfortunately, as inflation continues, many local entrepreneurs face an uphill battle to keep their doors open.
Crow & Co., a bookstore located at 2 South Main St., has provided the community with good reads and a welcoming environment for over four years. Yet, it is yet another small business falling victim to financial hurdles.
Sara Crow and her wife, Lara, first opened their doors in Aug. 2020 – smack dab in the middle of a pandemic. The couple had planned to open a bookstore during their retirement years but decided to implement their plan early when the previous bookstore in that location, Bluebird Books, was forced to shut down earlier that year. This left Hutchinson with slim pickings regarding bookstores, which Sara Crow decided was not acceptable.
“Lara and I both have degrees in English and believe deeply in the power of story to both help build empathy for other people’s experience and to increase the quality of life for readers,” Crow said. “We decided we couldn’t have a community without a bookstore.”
In addition to their wide selection of books, Crow & Co. has gifts, games and locally-made art available on their shelves. They also have a coffee shop, where customers can buy coffee, teas, sodas and house-made pastries.
Crow said they offer a “green room” that people can rent out for parties and private events for a low fee. They allow book clubs and non-profit organizations to reserve the space during business hours for free, as long as they purchase food and beverages from them. Crow & Co. has also hosted musical performances and has had authors, both local and national, hold book events there.
Along with providing a venue for private events, the Crows actively makes an effort to strengthen ties within the community. They host a wide variety of community-oriented events such as their most recent event set up by Hutch in Harmony to celebrate Dia de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead).
“I want the shop to be a unique space where we can learn to understand and appreciate each other in both the ways we’re similar and the beautiful ways we’re different,” Sara Crow said. “Our community has so much richness to offer, and I love that we’ve been a space to help people come together and appreciate each other a little more.”
Despite the sense of community and the variety of services offered, Crow and Co. is still facing the possibility of closure.
Crow said that as an independent store, they have been walking on a bit of a tightrope since the start. However, there have been additional factors that have put the business in a state of uncertainty.
Due to several personal circumstances, the Crows were forced to relocate to Minnesota earlier this year, resulting in higher payroll costs and additional stress from not being present at the shop. Crow & Co. also experienced an unexpected lull in sales during the summer and fall months this year.
“I’d anticipated better performance and purchased inventory earlier this year with that in mind,” Sara Crow said. “So we really started feeling the strain about the middle of the summer when the relief of summer visitors didn’t happen the way we’d anticipated.”
Sara Crow said the community has shown an overwhelming amount of support through this hard time. She said many people have supported the business by donating to the GoFundMe set up by Sara Crow, and by coming in and making purchases in the store. Customers have also purchased items through online platforms that support the business like Libro.fm, which offers subscriptions and single-purchase audiobooks, and Bookshop.org, an online bookstore that ships nationwide. Crow and Co. has also relaunched their t-shirt shop on Bonfire.com.
The support from the community has caused Crow to remain hopeful about avoiding closure for good.
“We’re not out of the woods yet, but it’s really helped to have the outpouring of love from the community to get us on the road toward catching up,” Crow said. “They’re all showing me exactly why this community can be such a great place.”
