Four former staff members at the defunct Folio Books are working to open a new bookstore — named Noe Valley Books — at the same location as the shuttered neighborhood staple as soon as October.
There has been a bookstore at at 3957 24th St. between Sanchez and Noe for nearly four decades — “the bookstore across from Whole Foods,” as locals say.
Phoenix Books was at the site for 28 years until 2013. Then came Folio Books, which stayed in business for a decade, but then closed its doors in February this year.
Isaiah Scandrette, co-owner of the nascent Noe Valley Books, started working at Folio Books in May 2021. He said he didn’t realize how much people loved the bookstore until the announcement of its closure.
“People were coming in tears, asking ‘Did we not do enough?’” Scandrette recalled. “That really hurt and broke our hearts.”
It was then that Katerina Argyres, one of the owners of Folio Books and now a co-owner of Noe Valley Books, made up her mind: “I will bring a bookstore back no matter what.”
Back in 2021, two co-owners of Folio had retired and moved away, so Argyres — who spent about a decade working at BookShop West Portal — found two new business partners then and took over the shop. In February, those two partners returned to their previous careers, which is why Folio closed.
When the staff learned about the closure, Scandrette recalled, he and Andrew McIntyre, an employee at the bookstore since 2014, reassured Argyres.
“You don’t have to save the store,” they said. “But if you do, we’ll be there, whether it happens now or in five years.”
So began the journey to bring back a bookstore to Noe Valley for the four co-owners — Argyres, Scandrette, McIntyre and Kit Fitzgerald. Folio Books staff had their closing party in February. March was a month for grieving. In mid-April, “I got the lease. It’s on,” Argyres texted the group. The work started in earnest in May.
During that month, they kicked off a GoFundMe with a goal of $150,000. Over the first week, they raised nearly $30,000. By the end of August, the bookstore had received over 630 donations totaling more than $130,000.
The new owners took down the old bookshelves, cleaned, painted color swatches on the wall and decided on a dark green — a green that matches the bookcases but isn’t “cave-like.” Argyles wants to fill the space with plants: “If you are having a bad day, you can come in and be treated to some mellow music and have plants around you to make you feel better.”
On a recent Wednesday, those changes were being implemented. Plastic film was draped over bookcases. A few color swatches remained on the wall. The main room smelled like paint, but the majority of work has finished, the owners said.
Details are important for the crew — how the store is laid out, how many tables there are, and whether shelves are well-designed enough that even books on the bottom can be seen. “We want to be fair to all of our books,” Argyres said, laughing. “We want them all to be happy and go to a lovely home.”
The shop’s renovation is taking longer than expected, but the new owners want to take their time. “We’re trying to build something that will far outlast anyone else and will stay in this neighborhood for as long as humanly possible,” said Argyres.
For Argyres, who started her career as a children’s book seller, there’s nothing more satisfying than seeing little kids grow into teenagers and come back to the bookstore they went to as children.
Scandrette, too, enjoys the satisfaction of bringing books into a child’s world. He remembered the first time he recommended Bone, a graphic novel series by Jeff Smith, to a kid, who came back the next Saturday and asked “How many can you order at a time?”
“You don’t want to scare the child, but you do just want to go in the back room and just like, ‘YES!’” Scandrette said.
But the decision that took the owners “an inordinate amount of time” to figure out was the bookstore’s name.
“I was on the wordplay train, which no one else was on board with,” Scandrette laughed. Others tried to come up with references specific to Noe Valley, or have a plant-based name (the staff members are all plant parents). Argyres went as far as “Serpentine Creek,” a creek that historically ran through Noe Valley.
Eventually the owners realized, when seeing the support and donations pouring in from neighbors, “this is Noe Valley’s bookstore and should be named as such.”
“It’s simple. It’s easy. It’s exactly what it says in the name,” Argyres said. “I think that lasts longer than some very complicated names.”
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