Books and bites
Commonplace Books set to expand with cafe
Business Writer slackmeyer@oklahoman.com
Not even a year has passed and Commonplace Books in Midtown is set to expand with the addition of a cafe.
Benjamin Nockels opened Commonplace Books on April 20 on the ground floor of The Edge Apartments at 1325 N Walker Ave. In the ensuing months, the store has built up a loyal following among downtowners who listed a bookstore as one of their top three desired retail additions (a grocery and drugstore rounding out the list).
At the time the store opened, the first large commercial tenant at The Edge, Organic Squeeze, had closed its doors after operators determined they had taken on too large of an operation. Developer Gary Brooks, who had encouraged Organic Squeeze to experiment with a bigger store and added food bar, didn’t want to make the same mistake twice.
“We originally wanted all 3,000 square feet,” Nockels said. “There is 1,050 square feet to the south of us. But after the Organic Squeeze difficulty with their 4,000 square feet, Gary was gun-shy about giving
3,000 square feet to one tenant. That gave us a pause, an opportunity to get this settled, and then go for phase two.”
The “phase two” started to percolate just months before the bookstore got its start as a pop-up shop in November 2016.
Nockels, still doing planning for the bookstore, was approached by local realtor and longtime urban dweller Gary Caplinger to help create material for a website on central city neighborhoods.
“He was selling houses
in the core and he told me he wants to tell the story of people living in these neighborhoods — not the houses, but the people,” Nockels said. “So he set me loose with a photographer.”
Chance meeting
During a visit to the Belle Isle neighborhood, Nockels met Chris Castro and his wife Trisha.
A fast friendship was formed as Nockels learned about Castro’s passion for food and the 5,600 people who follow his culinary adventures on Instagram.
“He has a cult following,” Nockels said. “If you follow him on Instagram, you wonder,
‘You’re pulling this off at home? You’re doing this just in your own kitchen?’ One person commented they wanted to send Postmates (online food delivery) to his house.”
Castro said he and his wife simply enjoy cooking and sharing their meals with friends.
“I’m a graphic designer by day, but I love cooking,” Castro said. “So I get to dabbling in food, doing private classes and getting into writing about cocktails for Edible magazine.
“It’s something I’ve always enjoyed. I always saw myself doing something someday, but didn’t know how or when.”
Nockels said he looked at expanding as the store
took off.
“We have a sense of permanence and longevity now,” Nockels said. “We believe we will be here for decades to come. So how do we strategically plan our future? The best way to do that is to ensure not just anyone opened next door to us — we needed to secure our future.
“We wanted to round out our operation with food and beverage.”
Nockels went straight to Castro and the pair put together a plan to expand Commonplace Books with a cafe both believe will be a fit with the existing comfortable neighborhood vibe that includes the frequent presence of Boz,
a friendly rescue dog adopted by Nockels in the days leading up to the shop’s opening last April.
“Hospitality is at the core of who we are,” Nockels said. “And that gets a lot simpler and better with what we’re planning to provide to our guests, friends and neighbors.”
The cafe is set to open in early 2018 and will be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner Monday through Saturday with Sunday hours at least matching the 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. hours kept by the bookstore.
“We will offer cocktails, wine, beer and coffee,” Castro said. “We will have a simple menu. We cook a lot, we love
having people in our home, so we could have our staples that we rotate a lot.”
With the expansion, Nockels is reuniting the same team that he credits with making Commonplace a success — interior designer Sara Kate and architect Jeremy Gardner.
Nockels believes the cafe will be a hit with his customers.
“C.S. Lewis said we read to know we are not alone,” Nockels said. “So if we read to know we are not alone, we certainly gather around the table for the very same reason. And I can think of no better person than Chris Castro to facilitate the experience.”