By Shari Russell
Founder/Owner, Birdie Books
March 31, 2026

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Growing up in the ’90's, people would just come over. There was no “text first” impending social doom. It was a knock on the front door, or a familiar voice shouting through an open window, “Hey-o, anyone home?” It wasn’t a big deal. Impromptu meet-ups made sense, and conversation lingered around what was growing in the garden, funny movies, or how to bake the perfect chocolate chip cookie. I watched my parents make coffee and play cards with neighbors, show off a collection of Florida seashells, or discuss a plan for home-sewn curtains. They took their time telling stories, shared laughs and hugs in a day that kept repeating as if it could conceivably go on forever. Their social behavior mirrored what we kids were doing with our own friends, organizing backyard adventure clubs, drawing pictures in the shade, and exploring a world we were sure was made just for us. Time was nothing we could fathom, and the future was an idea with which we were not concerned. What a gift.

Emily: Do any human beings ever realize life—while they live it? Every, every moment?
— Our Town, Thornton Wilder

Now, of course, we lock the doors and windows tight as all the familiar voices have gone home to do the same. We see the digitally enhanced faces of those we will never share space with appear endlessly on magic, hand-held portals to a dream reality of artificial everything. Our front doors now exist everywhere, at all times, and yet - nowhere at all. Generations to the front have never known it any other way.

Birdie Books is built on a memory. Or maybe a bunch of little memories of a GenX kid who frankly misses the twentieth century. Coffee shops without laptops; listening to entire albums, loudly, from beginning to end; recommending books instead of streaming services; brainstorming big adventures and wild ideas; in a physical place that exists in real time. It’s not home, it’s not work, it’s a space that the community needs as much as the space needs the community. We now call this A Third Place. We had Third Places in the ’90’s, we just didn’t realize how important they were.

Instead, we let them dissolve in exchange for a novel virtual existence. We erased community bedrocks for what we believed would be an easier lifestyle. Lawn mowers and light bulbs arrive on my front porch in 4 hours or less; however, I’ve never learned the delivery driver's first name. Let alone discussed gardening with them. I felt actual grief about this growing trend. Our now unspoken, anti-social, anti-connected community culture. After enough of this so-called convenient way of living, I decided to try out one of those wild ideas I had from way back when.

The backstory started at the intersection of Home St and N. State St, during a walk with my husband on a bright blue day early in September, 2019. Waiting to cross the street, I casually mentioned, “I want to open a book shop, right here in Uptown Westerville. I want to call it Birdie Books.” Despite my colorful track record of wins, losses, and draws, he shared in my excitement, understood my determination, and immediately went to work helping me find a location. Hiding in plain sight was a white Victorian house with a slate roof and a detached barn that ultimately stole my heart. By the end of October, we were the owners of 86 N State St, Uptown’s future Indie Bookshop! Turns out, the length of time before the future is hard to gauge.

As a student studying horticulture at The OSU in the early 2000s, I participated in a work-study program at the Chadwick Arboretum, an incredible campus resource open to the public. There, the most delicious, cotton-candy-smelling Katsura tree lives beside a walking labyrinth¹. I found such peace and safety in this natural space and would frequently make the physical and mental journey back and forth, around and out, getting so close to the labyrinth’s end, the center begging me to sit down, and then abruptly, so far away, yet again. I would take a break from class or from work, and just be free to listen to the birds sing and let nature find me. It’s not a long labyrinth, maybe a twenty-minute journey, but it’s just enough to break the spell of the everyday rush, rush, and go. I often had the same thought when I reached the center:

“Good things take time. Good things … take time.”

Almost twenty years later, on a walk Uptown, I had many good things in the works. A thriving tree care business², a young and lovely family, and hopes higher than the Andes mountains. Now that we owned a building, opening a bookshop was, of course, imminent and attainable. Yet, there were endless draft business plans; countless versions of blueprints and mock-ups; structural engineers; review board hearings; a global pandemic; planning commission hearings; postage-stamp sized parking lot configuring; a year in, now retention ponds; more review board hearings, how-to-start-a-bookstore workshops; liquor license petitions; another year more, sprinkler system designs for a house turned into a commercial space; and finally, custom hunter green bookshelves delivered. By the summer of 2021, we were ready to break ground. We were so ready.

Then Chance Luck and Big Decisions entered stage left.

Thanks go to the insightful friend who casually mentioned the Church of the Messiah was putting The Gathering Place³ up for sale. The seemingly enormous brick commercial building just two doors down from our future Victorian bookshop. There was no sign in the window or online listing, but there was ample parking, huge front windows, and plenty of space to do just about anything.

Half-believing, I called the church.

Following my quick wit to always say yes and figure it out later, we purchased 74 N State Street that July with the plan to only borrow the back — a simple Pop-Up Book Shop — while the well-thought-out construction took place next door. We used the front of the building as a temporary event space⁴, hoping someone would eventually want to rent it out for a restaurant. With a tenant, I could use some of the income to build out our bookshop next door. Such a genius idea, I kept repeating to myself. I begged local restaurateurs, “What a location!” I pitched. After many passes around this labyrinth of ideas, and no viable interest in the space, none, I stopped walking the winding path.

Instead, a blindsiding Kafkaesque mental collapse accompanied me through Dante’s Inferno of Big Decisions. What had I done? It was now much “later,” and I still had not figured it out. I was certain the space could support a concept beyond private events, yet I was out of ideas to find a tenant. I also knew the Victorian house was no longer the right fit for a bookshop. I heard my own words, “What a location!” we now had. Was the universe trying to tell me that the enormous brick building was meant for Uptown’s future Indie Bookshop! after all, and not, the heart-throb Victorian house? Going back to the beginning, starting over after so many years (years!) of effort, time, resources, pleading and researching - winding in and out, around and back again, required more stamina than I had left. Were the birds even singing anymore? This business idea was starting to feel like a lot of other attempts at business I knew well.

I’ve had several businesses fail. Sometimes, it just doesn’t work out. I’ve been a wedding florist⁵ and a flower farmer with a flower truck⁶, an event coordinator, and a landscape designer⁷. Businesses that I adored and in which also eventually collapsed like a gorgeous soufflé out of a hot oven of romanticized delusion. It’s heartbreaking but also normal. Deciding to fold is a lonely and humbling experience, but it also opens the door to infinite possibilities.

Birdie Books felt different to me, though. I wanted to bring back what I knew we had lost. Conversation, connection, and community. I craved creative spaces free from corporate influence, where people with names I know are willing to share their talents. Where independent businesses support other independent businesses. However, I was at a loss, both financially and mentally.

I pulled the plug on the Victorian build-out.

I didn’t want to give up, but maybe my hopes were too high. After all, the tallest peak in the Andes mountains is over twenty-two thousand feet above sea level. For four months, I was consumed with doubt while the incredible Birdie team kept the lights on, kept making space for community, and kept the story going. May a round of audible applause never pause for the miraculous Birdie Bunch. As I advanced through what felt like the nine circles of Hell, they reminded me, what was a few more years with a story to tell like ours?

My grandfather was a bookseller in Dayton, Ohio. Watching him walk tall amongst the packed shelves, the crisp paper smell, the vivid colors, the weight of a stack of new books in my hands, live like golden waterfalls in the bank of my memories. “Books have the power to take us places when we have nowhere to go,” was one of his many borrowed sayings. His endless, remarkable generosity in sharing books continues to inspire me every day to press stories into the hands of readers eager to go places. His memory helped me keep trying. Even when I thought, there’s no way, there was also a voice telling me, keep going, just keep walking the path, keep climbing, you’ll get there.

“There” eventually arrived in 2026. Seven years after that Uptown walk in early autumn. We rolled up our sleeves and committed to the dream, and did it all over again. Blueprints, buildouts and team building. Good things take time. Good things…take time. Maybe this place was always here — like a statue that exists inside a slab of stone. It was going to be something someday. What is happening here is important, and it’s not just important to me. Each human who has shared in this journey has built this place, this idea, that we can return to a time where we know each other well, because we believe there is a way to live life more connected. More united. I’ve seen it happen. It used to exist only as a memory, and now, it’s real life.

Birdie Books has officially grown out of the Pop Up Shop, to now include a micro-bakery, coffee shop and full bar. Every title in our bookshop is hand-picked by our incredibly resourceful book buying team. Real people passionate about researching printed material that may be hard to find. Yellow Springs Brewery is on draft as a nod to my hometown, Dayton. A place of remarkable innovation. At one time, Dayton held more patents per capita than any other U.S. city⁸. Growing up in an entrepreneurial family, this fact was the backbone of our hometown pride.

Birdie Books supports central Ohio based, One Line Coffee, which sources beans from traceable, single-origin, exceptional coffee producers. Our wine selection is sourced from family-owned vineyards with organic and biodynamic farming practices. All of our baked goods, pies, and puddings are created in-house, from scratch. I suggest the peanut butter chocolate chip cookie; it’s the best. All the china in the cafe was made in the Ohio River Valley. The Birdie Books front door was made from local white oak, hand-crafted by the most talented woodworker, who lives right here in Uptown. It’s a community. Our community. Our Town. You’re welcome to just come over; you don’t even have to knock. We’ll be waiting here for you to laugh, to learn, and to explore all the infinite possibilities together.

Because, This Must Be The Place. Play the whole album, and play it loud, ok?

(David Byrne, The Talking Heads. “This Must be the Place (Naive Melody)” Speaking in Tongues, 1983.)

Footnotes
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¹ Lois B. Small and Gladys B. Hamilton Labyrinth Garden
² Russell Tree Experts
³ 74 N State St. Westerville, OH
⁴ Uptown Gather
⁵ Bella Floral Design
⁶ Juniper Flower Co.
⁷ Green Spade Designs
⁸ Hailey Lane, Spring 2020, The “Dulled” & Disappearing Gem City: An Attempt to Restore the Social and Economic Forces of Dayton, Ohio While Incorporating Ecological Principles, corescholar.libraries.wright.edu, Article Link

This Must Be The Place

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