Owning a bookstore was a lifelong dream for Tanya Sedneva.
And on Saturday, Beyond Text Bookstore will celebrate its one-year anniversary, with snacks, live music and other activities.
“I can’t believe it’s been one year already, though at times it feels like it’s been just a couple weeks since I started,” she said.
However, this benchmark comes alongside the recent news that corporate store Barnes & Nobles will be opening, just down the street.
She can’t help but admit, if nothing else, it’s a setback. And she’s not the only small business affected by the impending arrival of America’s biggest book retailer to Los Gatos.
Antique seller Vidi Vici Gallery is being forced out of the building at Grays Lane and North Santa Cruz Ave. the chain is moving into.
Sedneva started her independent bookstore after her prior industry—the Silicon Valley tech world—took a nosedive. And now she’s feeling insecure, once again.
She says this was a bit of a shock, particularly since the Barnes & Noble location at 5353 Almaden Expressway held its closing sale just months ago.
“I cried a bit,” she told the Los Gatan.
Sedneva moved here from Russia nearly a decade ago, and says she wishes to continue operating the bookstore.
She aspires to be able to purchase a home in town one day, since she fell in love with Los Gatos’ charm.
Barnes & Noble has been growing rapidly—opening more new bookstores in 2024 than it did from 2009 to 2019.
It’s planning to open 60 new retail locations this year.
Sedneva is upset, as she currently holds the top market position in the community for new books.
Trying to remain optimistic, she looks at other successful independent businesses in town—like Los Gatos Coffee Roasting Co., Icing on the Cake, and Domus—for inspiration.
Sedneva highlights that indie shops offer something that can’t be replicated in a big chain, like passion, atmosphere, true connections and stories that people share.
She wants the townspeople to know that she doesn’t do bulk order and maintains a curated collection.
Sedneva spends hours looking for books that stand out because of their unusual subject matter or illustrated editions, and she enjoys sharing these findings for hours with customers.
Antique store’s last days
Over at Vidi Vici Gallery the other day, Nino Demiani was assisting weekend antique hunters.
His daughter is the sole proprietor, and because their lease is month-to-month, they’ve been told to vacate the premises.
Demiani is frustrated because he says they did a lot to improve the space when they opened a year back, just to now see Barnes & Noble swoop in and take over.
“It was a big mess,” he said. “We spent like three months cleaning it.”
He recalls running Main Street Antiques at 150 West Main St. back in the day.
“Everything changed,” he said. “Now people don’t want antique, I guess.”
A young man and woman were looking at a canvas without a frame of a phoenix and a dragon.
“He is well-known,” Demiani said of the Hourian, an Iranian artist. “He live in Germany, then he moved to the United States.”
The pair left without it.
“They don’t want it for $65. The canvas alone costs $65,” he said. “They come; they disrupt me.”
He says their business too often serves as a physical “search engine” for buyers who end up purchasing from eBay or other places online.
And after investing into renovations last year, they now have to be out by the middle of May.
“We basically lost our money here—big,” he said, adding he’s been feeling more than a little depressed these days. “It’s not just the money. That’s a year of our lives, gone.”
The store is now running a Store Closing sale and has extended their hours.
Barnes & Noble features Marina author
Down at Barnes & Noble’s Gilroy location on Saturday, business was brisk.
That was in part because Marina-based author Robert F. Lowell was signing copies of L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 41, which features his contest-winning story “Kill Switch.”
While the competition bears the name of the founder of Scientology, the series has garnered a generally positive reputation in the sci-fi scene independent of the organization.
An employee at the store confirmed plenty of people purchased copies of the book—and also noted a district manager was in town last week to announce details about the Los Gatos store opening.
