PITTSBORO — For Myles Friedman, the owner of Circle City Books in Pittsboro, “any bookstore is special because there are so few of them around.”
When Friedman started his business eight years ago, it was after a long career of publishing magazines in Carrboro. As the internet became more dominant, the company stopped publishing magazines.
“We went from having popular publications to none, all in a matter of 18 months,” Friedman said.
So Friedman thought about doing something else.
Having lived in Pittsboro for more than 30 years, he believed that the town was perfectly situated for a bookstore.
“It was close enough to universities to have a highly educated people,” Friedman said. “And it was a small town that still had small-town rent and a community of people who were invested in small shops. I decided this was a good place for it and I felt ambitious enough to try.”
Located on downtown Pittsboro’s main strip, Hillsboro Street, Friedman describes Circle City Books as a “general interest book store” where he tries to offer customers a “little bit of everything” — from the classics “people want their children to read,” he said, to current and up-to-date titles and “as many beautiful old books” as he can find. He also sells vinyl records and CDs, noting “a lot of overlap” between the two mediums.
Each day, Friedman would see traffic along Hillsboro Street as people traveled to points north and south of town, with many people coming by the store only knowing about it because of the need to travel along U.S. 15-501. He noted that more than half of his customers were coming from places outside of Chatham County.
This, he said, was one of the reasons his store was successful. As one of the few used bookstores in the region, Friedman’s gamble on the enterprise was a winner. Each month and year from the time he opened eight years ago was more successful than the last.
“Until the pandemic ended my streak of prosperity,” he said.
Friedman closed his store a week before Gov. Roy Cooper’s state mandate in March when he realized that people weren’t coming downtown or stopping into the store before the stores were forced to close.
“I could have been open for about a week, but I didn’t need to have anyone hit me over the head,” he said. “I was worried if I stayed open, I was giving people an incentive to be downtown when they shouldn’t be. I didn’t want to be responsible for that. It was not a difficult decision because it was clear.”
While closed, he still served customers by phone who were searching for a good find. And as the state rules on operating retails establishments during COVID-19 began to loosen, Friedman has found ways to continue to serve his customers even with the restrictions.
Two weeks ago, Friedman re-opened his shop with fewer hours — from noon to 5 p.m., though he’s open seven days a week. No one is permitted in the store without a mask and each customer must use the disinfection station he has set up at the entry. He is also only allowing one customer or group in at a time as it’s “impossible to social distance” in the store because “it’s too small.”
“Particularly at the front counter where we do the transactions,” he said. “It’s just not possible to do it safely [without limiting the number of customers at a time.]”
Since re-opening, he said he’s done about one-quarter of the business he did before, but he wants to continue to be open as long as he can.
“I want people to know I’m taking seriously the obligation of bookstores to provide books even when times are not especially fruitful,” he said. “It’s easy to provide that when money is rolling in, but I’m happy to do it because that’s the role of a local bookstore. To make sure people can get books. And I’m going to keep doing that as long as I can.”
How long Friedman can continue to operate depends on several factors.
“It won’t last unless things get better,” Friedman said. “Some will depend on the government and if it decides to help small businesses into the fall and the winter. It will be different than if everyone is on their own. There is a point where all the money from all my savings and everything will just be gone; whether I want to be here or not, I won’t be able to pay the bills.”
But Friedman is hopeful, saying he’s not expecting the pandemic to last for two or three years. He said he has “a lot of confidence in the medical community and scientific community.” With “smart dedicated people working” on solutions to COVID-19, he believes that in the next two years there will be “some kind of a vaccine or treatment that will make things better.”
But he’s not expecting that to happen this year. So for the time being, Friedman will continue to help the community get the books it wants.
“I’m going to keep doing that as long as I can,” Friedman said. “I’m grateful for people who come to the store and buy books, but understand why they don’t want to. It’s frightening to go out during these uncertain times. I hope they come back when things get safe.”
Casey Mann can be reached at CaseyMann@Chathamnr.com.