I didn’t recognize it the first time. I’d driven across town to check out a new Barnes & Noble outpost in Santa Monica, which reopened a block away from a B&N that closed in 2018. But as I strolled down the Third Street Promenade, a beleaguered outdoor mall, I walked right past the B&N without realizing it. When I doubled back to find it, I couldn’t believe what was in front of me. The chain’s new stores look nothing like the B&Ns of my youth—the big box grayscale-core endemic in the early aughts, all sprawling square footage and blistering fluorescent overhead lights, with a global coffeehouse aesthetic anchored by the omnipresent Starbucks cafe inside the store.
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