There are many different anniversaries being reached at Bacchus Books and Cafe as the building turns 100 years old, the bookstore as it stands turns 10, and the cafe upstairs reaches it sixth year in business.
The bookstore and cafe are run by Caleb Moss and Niki Dusseault. Moss explained why he bought the bookstore 10 years ago.
“It is romantic. It is eclectic and interesting. It is not like working for a large bureaucracy. You are your own bureaucracy,” he said. “As far as retail stuff goes, I can’t imagine any other place that has as eclectic and interesting a clientele as a new and used book store, other than maybe a new and used bookstore with a cafe.”
Moss added that after a few years of being in business he started to look at the idea of the cafe.
“It was the perfect storm with my partner Niki and I. She wanted a career change and we found the building worked,” he said. “After running across conceptually similar places that would have food or coffee and books in Victoria, it always stuck with me that it marries itself nicely.”
Moss added that it has been nice to be able to run a family business as, “It has been interesting, challenging and never, ever boring.”
He went on and said it is because of the people in Golden that businesses like his survive.
“Small town retail is difficult in good economic climates and bad economic climates. There is a very small margin for error. You can’t make too many mistakes,” he said. “That has been what kept me in business for the past 10 years. You survive on local support and then, depending where the tourists economy goes, the extra comes in,” he said.
Moss explained that he has spent his life reading but that did not really contribute to his decision to purchase the business.
“I have read obsessively since I was little, but I never had aspirations to run a bookstore. They were places like record, tape or CD stores that I would gravitate to when I travelled,” he said. “They are little bastions of friendliness that you can go into. They have the ability to transport you somewhere else and I feel lucky to be in the middle of it.”
As much as Moss may run the book side of the business, Dusseault uses her creative side in the cafe.
“Niki is passionate about keeping it creative. We both love it and that translates to our clientele,” Moss said.
“We do scratch food and homemade soups every day. Everything we cook or bake is done in house,” Dusseault said.
She went on and explained her ideas come from a variety of different places.
“I have my old standards that I have had for years which I modify. I am fly by the seat of my pants type of gal. I do not like prearranged menus. So every morning I get up it depends on how I feel. People enjoy that, and six years in I am still very interested in what I am doing with the cafe.”
Moss wanted to add that he welcomes people coming into the store looking for books for him to find.
“What still surprises me is that people don’t realize it is easy and fast and price competitive to order things in. There is an assumption that it is a burden on me or it is too costly because of shipping. It is not. If you are looking for something I can find it. Be it from last week or 1910 I can find it,” he said.
People can drop by the store or check out www.bacchusbooks.ca to learn more about the store.
