Dudley’s Bookshop Café
Image courtesy of the store.
A few blocks from Mirror Pond and Drake Park, in the central Oregonian city of Bend—just one mile away from the last surviving Blockbuster store in the United States—stands a green shingled-storefront within a one-hundred-plus-year-old building. If it’s over sixty degrees outside, the no-longer-code-compliant Dutch Door will be propped open to invite visitors inside. Enter, and the welcoming aroma of fresh espresso shots—and books both new and old—will mingle pleasantly in your nostrils as the sounds of The Wood Brothers, Curtis Mayfield, or 60s-era John Lee Hooker waft into your ears. Look around at the low pine ceilings crisscrossed with huge Douglas fire beams against the exposed brick walls, the ornamental vintage typewriters propped against the bookshelves, the giant pine slab café counter serving up fresh flat whites—you’ll think nothing could possibly get better…until it starts to snow outside and your mind becomes totally blown.
Image courtesy of the store.
“Cozy,” “welcoming,” and “eclectic” are all words Tom Beans has heard to describe Dudley’s Bookshop Café, the magical independent bookstore I’ve been detailing. The shop has existed in some form in Bend since the early 70s, but took its current name in 2008 after the then-owner’s English Spaniel. Twelve different owners were at the store’s helm before Beans took over in 2015 as the lucky thirteenth.
“When I bought the shop, I was really just looking to buy myself a job,” Beans says.
After quitting his job to spend the summer as a fly-fishing guide, and with winter approaching, Beans had to decide between becoming a ski bum at a local resort, or helping out during the day at Dudley’s. Some limited book business experience from working for Tower Books in the 90s led to his choosing the latter.
Image courtesy of the store.
“At the time, it was almost all used books, so I decided I’d jump in, start stocking the store with some new titles on my own dime to see what would happen.” It turned out to be a good decision, as six months later Beans found himself in a place to purchase the store.
Seven years in and so far, so good, even if Beans does admit he has become a little nose-numb to the charming coffee smell that is now a staple of Dudley’s. But in that time, quite a lot has also changed about the town that the store calls home.
“Bend was hit hard by the recession, but by 2015 it was starting to be whispered about as one of the ideal outdoor destinations in the Pacific,” Beans says. “Bend has now gone from a quiet, high desert mountain town to a mecca for all things outdoors.”
The added popularity of Bend—coming in part from major features in publications such as The New York Times and The Guardian—has been a mixed bag overall. It has brought tourists in huge numbers to the city, helping to improve the local economy, alongside larger issues, such as rapidly rising housing costs, severe fire seasons, and increasing financial disparities.
Beans tries to take the changes in stride, appreciating how the uptick in traffic has broadly helped Dudley’s to become an anchor in the Downtown Bend area.
“We cater to locals and tourists alike,” he says. “Pre-COVID, we were a third space where folks could hang out for meetings, book groups, live music, or catching up with friends over a latte. Bend is still a relatively small community and we try to give back however we can.”
Image courtesy of the store.
Beans is particularly proud and honored for Dudley’s to be the first bookstore in the country to become a member of the 1% for the Planet, an environmental philanthropy organization founded by Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia. Larger companies like Boxed Water and OXO are also part of this initiative. This partnership means that one percent of the store’s sales go to a handful of local environmental nonprofit organizations working toward conservation efforts. “I’m really happy to write those checks each year,” Beans says proudly.
But challenges brought on by the pandemic have made it more difficult to give back to the community in the other ways Dudley’s is used to, such as offering meeting space or hosting events. “It forced us to pivot away from a bookstore/coffee shop hybrid model,” Beans says, a frustrating but necessary precaution to preserve the health and safety of their staff and customers. Longtime patrons are missing the literary and music events the store used to put on, but with Oregon’s mask mandate still in place, there just isn’t enough space to bring them back for the foreseeable future.
The upside of this, however, was that the extra space allowed the shop to add more books to their selection. This resulted in increased sales (a trend true nationwide for booksellers), and more than made up for the loss of the store’s sit-down coffee services. In fact, Beans says, “We set a sales record in 2019, and we’re on pace to top that in 2021.”
It’s unclear whether Dudley’s will go back to its old sales model sometime this year/in the broader future, or if it will continue to operate in its current form. But whatever happens, Beans is dedicated to making decisions to try to set up the store for continued success.
Image courtesy of the store.
“My big-picture goal is to ensure that Dudley’s is here both for the community and my staff for decades to come,” he says. “I believe the right book at the right time has the ability to change the direction of someone’s life.” This is particularly true for Beans, who was personally influenced by Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire and Wallace Stegner’s Beyond the Hundredth Meridian; books which impacted decisions that arguably changed the course of his life for the better. He feels strongly about continuing to provide this same opportunity for others.
“In times of strife, people turn to non-fiction to help understand their world. In times of comfort, readers typically turn to immersive fiction. To be able to walk into a bookstore and be surrounded by stories and ideas outside of our own experiences, books that challenge our assumptions, books chosen by a person from your town and not an algorithm,” he says. “That experience should be open to everyone and can only help to make us better, more understanding people.”
Image courtesy of the store.
Recommendations from the Booksellers
Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese
“There is a not a single wasted word on these pages,” says Beans. This 2016 novel features a sixteen-year-old boy, Franklin Starlight, who reconnects with his estranged, alcoholic father, Eldon, in order to find an appropriate burial site, so Eldon’s dying wish to be buried as a warrior can be fulfilled. “It’s both elegiac and redemptive.”
Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafrón
This book, along with three other novels of Zafrón’s—The Angel’s Game, Prisoner of Heaven, and Labyrinth of Spirits—make up what is known as the Cemetery of Forgotten Books Series, which have sold more than 35 million copies worldwide. Beans has high praise for this tale of an antiquarian book dealer’s son mourning the loss of his mother through a mysterious book during the Spanish Civil War: “the great story [he’s] ever read.”
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
“1400-plus pages never flew by so fast,” Beans says of this classic tale of adventure, romance, intrigue, revenge, and so much more. “If you want to get lost in a big book this winter, you could do a lot worse.” Beans prizes this epic treasure hunt, inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment, that has been pleasing readers since the 1840s. “It’s a classic for a reason.”
Image courtesy of the store.
