For entrepreneurs, Mill Street in Bristol is a street of dreams, and its latest dreamer is Elaine Powers.

She opened a bookstore, Bristol Books & Bindery, a rookie entrepreneur facing a fragile and inflationary economy.

“It’s a risk my family took,” she said, confident that things will turn out at 129 Mill Street, at the top of the river town’s old business district.

If her story was a novel, the pandemic would be a key character. In 2020, deep in the COVID pandemic, she, her husband and their two children went for a car ride. Mill Street, had recently turned around a decades-long downslide with “Raising the Bar,” a community-led movement to revive the street, bring boutique shops, restaurants, eclectic bars and give Bristol the ambience of popular street enclaves in Brooklyn that attract younger people.

The place at 129 Mill had a “for sale’ sign on it.

“Around that time, everybody was in panic. And it was like, well, if the world’s ending, it’s now or never,” Powers said.

She bought the place for $470,000, a steal given its location.

“You walk out my front door, and there’s the river. It was a no-brainer,” she said.

But there was a problem. What would she do with the store? She had a friend who had talked for years about opening a beauty spa.

“I said I know the perfect little spot, Mill Street,” she said. “She could have her little spot here.”

It fell through.

“She got cold feet,” Powers said.

She had an empty building with a courtyard and studio. Now what?

One day, Powers walked the street and introduced herself to one of the owners of Calm Waters, a coffee shop. She told him she just bought the place a block down formerly occupied by the Polka Dot Parlor, a vintage clothing shop.

She said: “I don’t know what to do with the place.”

She recalled the guy at Calm Waters saying: “We need more places on the street to keep people here. Not in-and-out stores, where people come and then leave us. Places that have people stay and walk the street, see what we have here.”

And she said: “Oh, like a book store.”

It was a light bulb moment. The only problem?

“I know nothing about book stores.”

Friends told her an indie book shop is a losing proposition.

“Everyone says, ‘You’re not gonna make any money.’ And I get it, from a business point of view,” she said.

But a trip to the Poconos gave her another idea. Driving through the small town of Hawley, she saw a store, Main Avenue Books and Bindery.

“In the window there was a sign: ‘Bookbinding done here,’” she said.

Powers didn’t know what that was.

“I looked it up,” she said.

It’s a skill few have, even as it’s vital for preserving old books, like family Bibles and volumes of forgotten lore.

Another lightbulb went off.

“If I can incorporate similar facets of the same business model, without losing focus on books, it should be good,” she said.

The only problem?

“I knew nothing about bookbinding,” she said.

She researched and found one of the few places that teaches the skill in Malvern. She enrolled. She studied under master bookbinder Ramon Townsend, who apprenticed in the 1970s with bookbinders at Historic Williamsburg in Virginia. She found she has a knack for it. She’s so good, she teaches classes with Townsend.

She’ll have bookbinding lessons at her shop, along with writing workshops, author appearances, and other events that draw people who love ink on paper more than pixels on screens. But if there was any time to launch an indie bookstore, it’s now.

In 2021, The New York Times reported a remarkable comeback for independent book sellers. After government lock-down policies during the pandemic forced book stores to close, it was believed many would not survive the ordeal. But they did, and are thriving, The Times reported in that summer.

The American Booksellers Association, which represents indie bookstores, reported that year its membership increased from 1,689 stores to 2023 stores. A comeback, just like Mill Street.

Elaine Powers knows it’s not going to be easy learning the local market and what readers in Lower Bucks County want.

“Learning what people in the market want to read, yeah, that’s on a curve right now,” she said.

JD Mullane can be reached at 215-949-5745 or at jmullane@couriertimes.com.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Bristol Books & Bindery opens on Mill Street as latest L. Bucks book shop