"One artist to a block is more than enough."
- Elizabeth Bishop
Store Hours:
Mon-Thurs: 9am-9pm
Fri-Sat: 9am-10pm
Sunday: 9am-8pm
Café Hours:
Mon-Thurs: 9am-8pm
Fri-Sat: 9am-9pm
Sunday: 9am-7pm
In the Café
Capitola Book Cafe is now the home of Capitola Coffee Roasters & Patisserie!
Dishing up fresh baked Village Buns, pastries, savories, panini, soup & more.
Serving Vertigo coffee, housemade chai and infused syrups, as well as wine and beer.
We Buy & Sell Used Books
Book Café Marketplace
Treasures and artisan crafts from around the corner and around the world.
About Us
Capitola Book Café has been offering great books, engaging events, and delectable food and drinks to our community since 1980. Like all real treasures, it has been handed down, and four of its long-time booksellers became owners in 2007. We stock much more than books these days, but whether you’re looking for laughs, thrills, or wisdom, we’ll put the perfect book into your hands. It’s what we do.
Photo (left to right): Owners Melinda Powers, Wendy Mayer-Lochtefeld, Janet Leimeister, and Richard Lange.
Q&A WITH YOUR BOOKSELLERS:
MELINDA POWERS:
Q: What is the first "Oh wow, I love this" book you remember reading?
A: The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren, or The Dark Is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper, or A Wrinkle In Time and its series by Madeleine L'Engle. Goodness.
Q: What is the most recent "Oh wow, I love this" book you've read?
A: Oh, wow, just one? A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, Swim Back to Me by Ann Packer, Say Her Name by Francisco Goldman - there's magic in three's.
Q: What do you love about owning a bookstore?
A: I love being part of a community that is, at its core, profoundly interested in the sharing of story, inherently empathic, and undeniably connected through this inward-outward search for knowledge and understanding.
WENDY MAYER-LOCHTEFELD:
Q: What is the first "Oh wow, I love this" book you remember reading?
A: Probably the The Chronicles of Narnia books by C. S. Lewis.
Q: What is the most recent "Oh wow, I love this" book you've read?
A: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen is the high-brow one, One Day by David Nicholls is the low-brow one, ironically for similar reasons. Whip smart dialogue, specific, authentic characters, and the trump card: funny, funny, funny.
Q: What do you love about owning a bookstore?
A: Every shelf in the store holds a thousand different ways to see the world, and they're always changing. It's a privilege to be tapped into that river, and offer it to the community. When you put the right book into someone's hands, it might change their life, corny but true, and how cool is that?
JANET LEIMEISTER:
Q: What is the first "Oh wow, I love this" book you remember reading?
A: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.
Q: What is the most recent "Oh wow, I love this" book you've read?
A: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan.
Q: What do you love about owning a bookstore?
A: Bringing together touring authors and their readers.
RICHARD LANGE:
Q: What is the first "Oh wow, I love this" book you remember reading?
A: The Sea Wolf by Jack London (7th grade) or Then Again Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume (5th grade).
Q: What is the most recent "Oh wow, I love this" book you've read?
A: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen.
Q: What do you love about owning a bookstore?
A: Getting to hang around book people.
