Our new storefront is fully up and running these days – and one of the benefits of visiting us in Covington is the opportunity to shop our Seconds Shelf (which is the Boarded Bookcase from “The Anarchist‘s Design Book“).
On it go all of the books and tools that aren’t quite perfect – items we can’t sell at full price. Maybe we spilled coffee on the pages. Maybe a cover was put on upside down at the bindery, or a few pages got folded incorrectly at assembly. Or the post service damaged the book in shipping. Or we dinged a hammer head while seating the wedge. This is all good stuff – readable and usable…just a wee bit blemished.
As a result of this less-than-perfection, these books, tools and accouterments are priced well below their usual retail price…and you have to visit us to get them. We can’t ship them. We’d lose money if we did…and not only because of the packing and shipping cost, but the human cost in keeping on top of online listings and the like. There is usually no more than one or two of any given title/item, and it would be prohibitively person expensive/time consuming to deal with listing them online.
So I’m afraid you’ll have to come to 407 Madison Ave., Covington, Ky., 41011 to partake. Bonus: You get to see us, and hang out for a while in our beautiful river city!
Store hours are currently Monday-Wednesday-Friday from 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
– Fitz
p.s. About those store hours: I regularly receive emails with special requests to come in early/late or on an unscheduled day. I beg you to please stop sending those. While we might change the hours in the future, for now, these are the hours. In our other hours, we are writing/editing books, building something in the shop, making tools, spending time with friends and family, communing with our cats….
After more than a year of struggling to get our inventory under control, we did a little rearranging of things in our warehouse and figured out that we have enough open floor space to build our storefront, editorial offices and a new tool assembly area.
We were shocked that our plan worked.
For the last month, we have been building out the storefront and offices on the first and second floors. It’s going quickly because we had done a lot of prep work during the agonizing first phase of repair and restoration.
Our plan is to hold our Open Day on Nov. 23 at our current storefront at 837 Willard St. After that, we will move all our retail and editorial offices to the Anthe Building at 407 Madison Ave., about a half-mile away.
Here’s how that looks: We’ve finished building the walls in the storefront area at the Anthe Building, refinished the floor and have almost finished the interior painting.
When we move our retail operation there, we will have all our books displayed on the Monticello bookcase. We are building a tool chest that will be used to display our tools. Our apparel will be pinned to a big corkboard on the wall. And a Holtzapffel workbench will be in the center of the room for demos and trying out the tools.
The front of the storefront will be built out like a 19th-century store. We’re building a platform at window height that will fill the enormous window bay that faces Madison Avenue. On top of that platform we will have two large stair-step risers (4’ wide x 3’ tall) that will allow us to display our books, tools and apparel to passers-by. Between the two risers, we’ll have space to show off a project. The risers and platform are all mobile, so we can easily rearrange things for a holiday display (get your elf hat on, Megan).
We are still working out where to display the blemished books and tools. That will come after we get the other fixtures in.
Offices
On the second floor we are building our offices and tool-assembly area. The walls of the front third of the building have been scrubbed to remove the old dirt and grease. The fireproof drywall (at the county’s order) has been mudded, sanded and primed. We have a heat pump system installed on the second floor. We just need a little paint, a little electrical and some yellow-pine flooring installed over the original old flooring (which is too delicate for us to use, but we are preserving it).
What About Willard Street?
As most of you know, Lucy and I live above the shop at Willard Street, so this will reduce the hustle and bustle below for us. The first floor will remain exactly as it is now – except for the fact there will be no retail sales there.
The bench room will remain the same and be used for classes. The mechanical library will be intact. And the kitchen and biergarten will remain the same for students and our employees to enjoy.
The machine room won’t change at all. All the machines are mine personally, anyway. So there’s no plan to move those.
Megan, Kale and I will work at both locations, depending on the day. I’m sure we’ll find a rhythm eventually.
And Then…
There is still tons of stuff to do at Anthe. We need to restore the exterior and make storm windows for the third-floor windows. And eventually we will have a break room on the third floor (or maybe the second floor) for employees.
Note: If you’re planning on coming to town next month for our Chair Show and Open Day, here are some restaurants to try. There’s a reason Cincinnati is one of the fattest cities in the USA.
Megan and I often joke that next year we’re going to flip the script on our classes at the storefront. We’ll hold a week of great restaurant meals, and we’ll also build a little stool (just to say we did some woodworking).
We are obsessed with good food – if you’ve taken a class here you probably already know this. So *if* we ever did a food tour, here is what the itinerary might look like.
Monday
Breakfast: Sugar ‘n’ Spice in Over the Rhine. This is an old-school diner. Stick to the basics, and you’ll be thrilled: pancakes, biscuits, French toast, home fries and bacon.
Lunch: City Bird (any location). A local chicken chain, and the best. Get the chicken however you like it (ask for it spicy if you like spicy). Be sure to get fries. And the salad is outstanding.
Dinner: St. Francis Apizza in Hyde Park. On Mondays, St. Francis does Chicago tavern-style pizza. It’s a six-day process to make the thin and flavorful dough. Standouts: pepperoni and sausage, and the bacon pizza (with whole slices of bacon). Pick up your pizza and eat it at a table in the parking lot. Get some drinks at Dutch’s a few doors down.
Tuesday
Breakfast: Maplewood downtown. Everything here is tasty and fresh. I love the chilaquiles and the lemon ricotta pancakes. The juice is worth it. Hang out by the restaurant’s front windows and watch the world go to work.
Lunch: Eli’s Barbecue, Findlay Market. The pulled pork sandwich and the smoked turkey sandwich are mainstays. Get the jalapeno cheddar grits on the side, or the mashed potatoes (which get seared on the griddle). After lunch, tour the market and get a waffle at the Taste of Belgium stand. You can spend the whole day at the market and its surroundings.
Lunch (per Fitz): Eckerlin’s Meats, Findlay Market. The hot pastrami sandwich is the best I’ve had in Cincinnati in years.
Dinner: Northside Yacht Club. This is in Megan’s neighborhood, and damn is it good. Great burgers, wings, fries. And always check out the monthly special. It’s a dive bar with A+ food and drinks. It’s not fancy. The “yacht club” is a joke – the building is on an industrial creek. For dessert, go to Shake It records (also in Northside). One of the two best record stores in the city.
Wednesday
Breakfast: Brown Bear Bakery. Cincinnati is awash in amazing bakeries. Brown Bear is a family favorite. Everything I’ve ever had there (except one thing) was mind-blowing good. Great coffee. Great place to sit and watch the city.
Lunch: Olla. Just a couple blocks from our office, Olla is serious Mexican food. The birria (in all its forms) is mouthwatering. The best guacamole in the city. Fantastic tacos. And a great place to hang out with a margarita.
Dinner: Colette. A small French restaurant that continuously blows my mind. I have had everything on the menu. And I will have everything again. If I had to pick a few favorites… the brioche, the cod, the ravioli and the cote de boeuf. My favorite cup of coffee in the city, too.
Thursday
Breakfast: Young Buck Deli. Only two things on the menu. Both are great.
Lunch: Heyday. We talk about this place a lot. On any given day, I will say that Heyday has the best burger and the best fries. Friendly staff. Everything is fresh and perfect.
Dinner: Cafe Mochiko. My favorite Japanese place in town. Fantastic ramen, karaage and katsu sandwiches on milk bread (it’s a Japanese bakery by day). Even the damn burger will blow you away. And if you like Japanese pastries, this is the place.
Friday
Breakfast: Coppins. The restaurant in the Hotel Covington. This is where we take guests when they visit. Lots of good stuff to please everyone in the family. And a beautiful place to eat, too. If the weather is nice, sit outside in the courtyard.
Lunch: Sotto. Usually I recommend Sotto for dinner, but it’s difficult to get a reservation for dinner. So go for lunch. Everything – and I mean everything – on the menu is fantastic. Sotto is where we go to celebrate our victories or lick our wounds. The short rib cappellacci can change your life.
Dinner: Purple Poulet. A family-run restaurant with the best fried chicken I’ve ever had. Shrimp and grits. All the Southern specialties. And if you don’t get the bread pudding at the end, then you will have committed a crime against puddings.
The above itinerary wasn’t easy to put together. On any given day I’d instead insist that you go to the Eagle, Allez, Otto’s, the Baker’s Table, Nada, Boca, Taft Brewhouse, Decibel, Libby’s, Mita’s, Losanti, Senate, Nine Giant, Crown Republic or Taglio’s.
And Fitz would add El Camino, Teak, Kiki, the Pony, Gulow Street and Sacred Beast.
Because of the Backwoods Chairmakers event in Berea, Ky., on June 2, we have decided to open our storefront doors here in Covington, Ky., on June 1 and June 3. This will allow travelers who are coming from out of town to stop by on their way to or from the event.
These days we keep sometimes-scattershot hours because we might be at the lumberyard, packing books at our warehouse or teaching out of town.
But on June 1 and June 3, we will be at our storefront (837 Willard Street, Covington, Ky., 41011) from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. to welcome you. We’ll have all our books, apparel and tools. Plus some blemished and returned books at half price (cash only on blemished books).
On June 2, Kale and I will be at the Backwoods Chairmakers event, documenting this once-in-a-lifetime gathering. We’ll also have a small table of chairmaking books for sale there. We will not have our full line of books at the event.
Great news: We are honored to welcome back Lie-Nielsen Toolworks to the Lost Art Press storefront for the first Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event since before the pandemic! Details on the event from Lie-Nielsen are here. (The company’s 2024 Hand Tool Event schedule is here.)
Admission is free, and there is an abundance of free street parking within walking distance of our storefront.
Lie-Nielsen will have its full line of tools on site for you to try out, and company representatives will be on hand to answer questions and demonstrate hand tool techniques. (And with a few exceptions, any Lie-Nielsen tool ordered at the event will get free shipping.)
And of course we’ll be here too, with our full line of books and tools.
Please note that the event will be held at our storefront on Willard Street – not our warehouse at the Anthe building on Madison Ave.
