Little Shop of Stories expands to Vivid Botique

The Little Shop of Stories is about to get bigger. Decatur’s bookstore plans to expand into its neighboring site, Vivid Boutique.

Vivid Boutique has closed its doors, though it’s not closing its business. The company seeks to find a smaller location in the city.

Lindsay Pingel, the events coordinator at Little Shop of Stories sees this as a fortunate opportunity.

“We’ve been looking for an opportunity to expand for a while now,” Pingel said. “We were afraid we had to look for another location outside of Decatur. Luckily, the space opened right next door and it wasn’t because the store went out of business.”

The Little Shop of Stories currently waits for city approval to move on with construction. Once the permission is granted, they plan to knock down the wall connecting the two stores and use the space to expand their collection.

The Shop does intends to keep their collection primarily for children, though they will expand their stock for older readers.

Beyond that, not much else is set in stone.

The extra space will provide more canvas space for Jason Smith, the Little Shop’s facilities manager and the artist behind many of the Shop’s wall art.

“We are hoping to keep the Little Shop’s whimsical design,” he said.

The Little Shop hopes to be fully renovated in later in the year, in time for the Decatur Book Festival.

Pingel attributes the ability to grow from the support of the Decatur community.

“You hear of so many other bookstores closing, but that’s not the case with the Little Shop,” she said. “We are really grateful to be in a community that loves books and loves to read.”

Photos by Derek Walker