Opening a New Bookstore with Tim Lohraff
- By Karen Wright
New bookseller Tim Lohraff.
By Karen Wright
I looked up "meta" in the dictionary and it can mean "among" or "with" or "change." I love being 'among books' and so does Tim Lohraff. While studying my brains out at the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar in August, I met Tim, who is 47 years-old, and who is opening Meta Books, a general used book store in Tacoma, Washington, in November 2008.
It may seem like opening a bookstore is a gutsy thing to do in this economic climate, but Tim is no dummy. He has done a lot of research and he has a little edge that will mean he can probably make a success of Meta Books in spite of the trashed economy. Meta Books will be located on the University of Washington campus in Tacoma and the campus is his landlord. It is a brand new building, the store has 1200 square feet, and besides the school, there are two excellent museums on his street as well as a yummy Pan Asian Restaurant called Indochine next door to the bookstore.
We asked him why he picked Tacoma instead of Seattle. "Seattle is oversaturated with bookstores and rents are very expensive. Tacoma is up and coming. U-Washington was formerly a two-year school, but now it offers fully accredited four-year degrees in a number of subjects. The students will be a great audience."
It is always fascinating to me how people get into the book business, and Tim is a perfect example. He was, until last month, a defense attorney. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and got his law degree at University of Illinois at Champaign. I asked him about his background and how he evolved from being a defense attorney to being a bookseller.
"Three major factors," he replied. "First, when I was in sixth grade, I read Attorney for the Damned by Irving Stone. From then on, Clarence Darrow was my hero growing up. He was not only a great defense attorney, but a progressive and a social activist. He was anti-death penalty and he was based in Chicago, near where I lived. Second, when I was a senior at the University of Michigan, I worked for a semester as an intern at the public defender's office. I enjoyed seeing the work they were doing and the camaraderie. It seemed to me to be socially useful work. Third, when I was a senior at U-Michigan, I was looking into either law school or English Lit for my PhD. I did some research and found that English majors had a tough time finding jobs, and I opted for Law. I wanted to do some kind of social activist law - environmental, criminal, or ACLU-type stuff. After I left school, I took a job at the Cook County Public Defender's Office, beginning with misdemeanors and working my way up to every sort of felony from battery, to rape, to murder. After seven years of that, I pretty well burned out and was hired into a friend's private practice doing civil rights litigation such as suing police for unlawful and excessive force. It was the People's Law Office. They are quite famous. They started small, defending one of the Chicago Black Panthers and went on to represent people on death row and to do Rodney King-type cases. I eventually became a partner there. One client in particular was a wrongfully-convicted Hispanic man, placed on death row. We took on his case, got him exonerated after eleven years in jail, and he was released."
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Opening a New Bookstore with Tim Lohraff
- By Karen Wright
The shop Tim Lohroff will be opening this month.
How, I asked, did you get to Seattle from Chicago? He told me he and his wife, Jeanette, who is also an attorney, and who he met when he worked in the Public Defender's Office, loved the West Coast, loved outdoor sports, backpacking, kayaking, and the like. They wanted to move west.
"By that time, we had both been attorneys for ten or more years. So, six years ago, we simply packed up, sold our condo, and moved to Seattle. We didn't know anyone, but we made friends and found jobs. I worked at the Federal Defender's Office and within a year, Jeanette decided to start her own company. She is still practicing law, but now she is a mediator and negotiator as well as a business attorney. She's doing well and bringing people together instead of pouring gas on the fires of disagreements, so to speak."
Then three years ago, Tim and Jeanette were returning from Victoria, Canada, to Port Angeles, Washington. They got off the ferry and went into Port Townsend to the William James Bookstore. Tim had, by this time, been a lawyer nearly twenty years doing heavy, serious stuff, but had always loved books, not just as a reader, but as a book lover. Tim swears that when they went into the bookstore in Port Townsend, Jim, the owner, looked at him and said: "You look like the kind of guy who wants to buy a bookstore." Tim said: "I kinda would." This planted the seed and though the deal for buying The William James bookstore fell through, Tim decided that instead of buying a bookstore, he would open his own.
"That got me going and I began to pick up books everywhere for 'IF I open a store.' Then that accelerated until now I have about 16,000 titles. I began to scout locations, and a year ago I decided to quit being a lawyer and be a bookseller. I started saving money, went to the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar, read blogs, and talked to lots of used bookstore owners. I quit my legal job and have been putting in sixteen-hour days trying to get the store open. I haven't had a chance to experience the fun part yet, as I am just trying to get the contractors to finish up when they are supposed to."
We asked Tim if they had kids. He replied that they didn't, but they have three cats and they are like their kids. I asked Tim how Jeanette felt about his being a bookseller. "She's very supportive," he said.
"So how close are you to opening?" I asked.
"The electrician is putting in some wiring, the sign goes up next week or the week after, the painting is in progress, and when that is done, I can put up the bookcases and begin putting books on the shelves. We hope to open November 15, but November 22 is the drop dead opening date."
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Opening a New Bookstore with Tim Lohraff
- By Karen Wright
Tim Lohroff's new bookstore in Tacoma.
He told us that he had "one of those great serendipitous occurrences" with his shelves. He has a friend on the east coast who buys up books from Borders Stores when they close. His friend knew of a Borders that was closing only a few miles from Tim's home. Tim said that in the space of three days, he went to the store, instantly bought all the shelving, disassembled it, and put it in a storage shed until time to reassemble the cases at Meta Books. "In about two weeks," he says, crossing his fingers, I’m sure.
If you are in the Pacific Northwest after November 15, Tim would like to invite you to visit him at Meta Books, 1916 Pacific Ave., Tacoma, WA 98402. His website, which is still under construction (as is mine, and has been since Methuselah was born), is www.meta-books.com and his email is tim.lohraff@gmail.com. You can call him at 253-627-4440, but wait until his phone is hooked up. We wish him the best of luck, and I can hardly wait to go to Tacoma and see his cool, new, used bookstore.
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