Today we’d like to introduce you to Mae Tingstrom.
Mae, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
From the dawn of time – lol, my young self always wanted to open a retail store. I grew up with a mom who said if you had a hard day, reward yourself with retail therapy – life is too short not to buy the shoes. Life went on, and I worked in the tech world of the Bay Area, and kind of had what most people want: stability, but I was just getting by, and the light of my soul started fading. Every day, I thought about what I could do to finally reach my goal of owning a small business. My dad called me one day and said that Summerland, CA (where he lived and I grew up half-time) needed a coffee shop. It’s crazy that I never thought about a coffee shop. It encompassed everything I wanted: being part of a community, working with other small businesses, and filling a need – I could even sell retail (greeting cards and gift items). My husband and I packed our whole lives up and moved down and got Red Kettle Coffee opened just shy of a year of arrival. As years went by and Red Kettle became successful, I started adding more and more retail, which included also lots of locally made goods as well. The retail started making up 20% of my sales for Red Kettle, and after 7 years, I finally had the confidence to pursue a retail store. I hate to say it because it sounds made up, but I just woke up with the idea of making it a Romance and Women’s Literature + Gifts. I’m a huge book nerd and would also seek out local bookstores wherever I traveled, so it would be a dream to own my own. I, of course, googled right away to see if it was already something and found Ripped Bodice in LA. They were and are still killing it, and it was intimidating but also gave me the confidence that my idea, my business, could be successful. I was fortunate to secure a prime location on Main Street in downtown Ventura, and it took a little shy of four months to get open. Smitten’s doors have now been open a little over two months!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
If anyone says opening a business was smooth sailing, they are lying! Unless they don’t care about making a profit and it’s a hobby business. I am not one of those people. Opening Red Kettle Coffee was a nightmare, construction was awful, everything cost more than you planned, and it takes twice as long. Once I got open, I did think now it’s smooth sailing from here, unfortunately we weren’t even open a year before our community suffered from the Thomas Fire and then the Montecito mudslide. We were fortunate to get through those hard times and get sailing again, but then we all faced COVID. I did think at the time that this is the end of owning a small business for me. That there’s no way we’ll survive. But we made it through lots of hard work, tears, and, luckily, my community still wanted coffee and very much wanted to support a small local business. If Red Kettle hadn’t survived, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to open Smitten. For Smitten, hardships have been, so far, translating visits from customers to sales. It seems that Kindle has a very large handle on the market, and sometimes it feels like Smitten is a showroom for customers to look at the books, and then (they actually say to us) I’ll go and get it on my Kindle. Thanks for the recommendations…
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Red Kettle Coffee & Smitten Bookstore?
We’ll focus on Smitten as it’s what you guys contacted me on, I had to mention Red Kettle previously because it got me to where I am now. Smitten is a romance and women’s literature and gift shop. We’re focusing on romance but also have lots of great lit fiction as well as non-fiction. We are celebrating women and nonbinary authors. All of our retail is also by women/ nonbinary businesses or locally handmade! We have sections of books that are titled Mind, Body, Sex, and Spirit. We want to rid the world of the taboo that we can’t enjoy sex or talk about our minds or our bodies. Why is it shameful to say we’re menstruating? These are the types of topics we want to be able to discuss freely and also educate ourselves more on.
We are also an inclusive space where all are welcome. We are celebrating women and nonbinary, that doesn’t mean men are not allowed – we would actually like to encourage men to shop Smitten.
I’m dedicated to building a community at Smitten. We finished renovating our back room into a funky lounge where we can host lots of events. Events include (but not limited to): author events, book clubs, tarot readings, health lectures, workshops, craft classes, art shows, fundraising for local groups (example LGBT event happening), book swaps, book trivia – honestly the list could go on and on.
Alright, so before we go, can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you, or support you?
Collaboration is key to the success of Smitten. We have a ‘For Authors’ on our website where authors can submit to be considered for our bookshelves as well as events. We have a ‘For Retail Partnership’ for anyone wanting to sell us their goods for retail. We would love to partner with anyone/organization that is like-minded with us – we’re open to events or anything someone might feel is a good collaboration.
Contact Info:
- Website: smittenbookstore.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smittenbookstore/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/smittenbookstore
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/smitten-ventura?osq=smitten
Image Credits
Celina Solis Robinson
Ethina Asdel
