Welcome to Writes & Bites — a series where Creative Writing MFA student Arianna Gundlach periodically reviews a place in New York City you could write at and tackles a writing topic that has been weighing on your mind. This week we look at what seems to be the new trend, Bibliotheque, another café-bar-bookstore, located at 54 Mercer St. in SoHo.
Hello, sensational readers and writers. I’ve been expecting you.
With the end of projects, papers, and finals bearing down on you, I’m here to show you the light at the end of the tunnel. Imagine a summer of good weather, tasty snacks, refreshing drinks, and riveting books (written by you or someone else!). And I can only hope with the start of summer comes the end of allergy season; it’s seriously kicking my butt. Manifesting the months ahead, let me help you get a jump start on your page-turning summer.
If you’re following book, writing, or café-related content on Instagram, the algorithm has most likely shown you Bibliotheque by now — a newer café-bar-bookstore in SoHo.
Founded by father-son team, world-renowned facial plastic surgeon Dr. Andrew Jacono and writer A.J. Jacono, the venue opened its doors in late 2023. If you’re familiar with Book Club Bar, another café-bar-bookstore, I would say Bibliotheque is Book Club’s bougie cousin. The café is open to walk-ins until 5 p.m., and then reservations are recommended afterward when the space turns into a wine bar at night.
Thankfully, the books are always around, no matter the time of day.
The red-brick storefront isn’t exactly eye-catching with only a simple sign and black-framed doors and windows. But that’s the charm of these hybrid spaces — they’re unassuming until you get to know them from front to back.
Similar to Book Club, when you step inside, you’re greeted immediately by the bar area. Giving you another chance to pull up a chair and sneak some glances at an attractive stranger over the pages of your book. The long, black-gold rippled bar handsomely matches the backsplash and seats up to 15. Across from the bar are two white high tables with six metal stools at each and hooks underneath for bags and jackets. There’s also small front-window counter seating with a street-view, though there’s honestly not much to see.
As the day goes on, you have a better chance of getting a seat in this front section, rather than at the back. And you’ll soon see why.
You’ll order at the bar. Though as always, I highly recommend snagging a seat BEFORE you order. This is crucial at places like Bibliotheque which fill up quickly after opening. While food options (lunch and breakfast sandwiches, pastries) and the “last bottle list” are on large chalkboards above the bar, you have to get up close to read the full, small-print café menu (tea, coffee, specialty drinks) at the register. None of the in-person menus list prices, so you’re basically ordering blind if you don’t look them up on the website or ask a barista (do this!). All food from the café menu is priced on the website, but the drinks or not.
Specialty drinks and sandwiches especially veer on the pricier side, so be careful ordering without knowing the price. When the venue turns into a wine bar, you can peruse the extensive wine list divided in “chapters” like Short Stories, Romance, Bestsellers, and Fantasy. I wish these literary touches extended to the café menu as well.
I ordered a croissant, which was large, fluffy, and flaky with that “perfect bite” sound when your teeth break the crunchy exterior. I hollowed mine out, picking apart the soft center just like I do with cinnamon rolls. To drink, I ordered a mocha — I find this to be one of the easiest drinks to compare among cafes — which came in a medium-size ceramic cup and had a decent balance of sweet and bitter. There’s also a free ice-water tap with glasses at the end of the bar.
Venturing past the bar, you’ll find a little in-between area with a bookshelf of coffee table books, a book check-out desk, and a tall glass case of wine bottles racked horizontally. You can return here if you find a book you want to purchase.
This is only a sneak peak of what awaits you a couple paces further.
Bibliotheque’s bookstore-café section is hands down the showstopper of the space. From the crystal-looking chandeliers to the caramel-colored booths to the sea of books wrapping around you like a giant hug from your favorite fictional characters — it takes a minute to get over the pleasurable shock. Entering this area with the floor-to-ceiling backlit bookshelves and rolling ladders, instantly reminded me of The Ripped Bodice. But while The Ripped Bodice is like Belle’s village bookstore, Bibliotheque is akin to the Beast’s library by day and perhaps Gaston’s tavern by night.
Seating is plentiful for those who arrive early. First come, first serve is a serious thing here because people will stay for the day. Getting there at opening (10 a.m.) or shortly after is your best bet.
For chatting with a friend, I recommend the caramel-colored couch that lines the right wall (and some of the left) or one of the corner booths in the back. The right side has three white-gray flecked tables and one larger black-gold table for the far-right corner booth. While each regular booth seats two (one on the couch and one on the chair), the corner fits three people on the couch and a fourth in the chair.
For hunkering down to work, settle into one of the three heather-red couches or upholstered chairs in the center of the room under the chandeliers. Two low tables are between each pairing of couches and chairs. There’s a balance of cool lighting from the chandeliers, warm lighting from low-hanging fixtures above the booths, and even some natural lighting from a rectangular skylight.
Both options have outlets and plenty of them, so charging up isn’t a problem. You can find them underneath the caramel couch/booths or on the floor between the red couches. Private Wi-Fi is available, and you can get the password at the bar.
Bibliotheque’s bar and bookstore-cafe sections feel a little too separate for me, especially for practicality reasons. You “listen” for your name after ordering, which is hard to do if you’re not seated in the front. And there’s not a convenient space at the front to wait either; I think it would get rather cramped if people did that.
If you’re sitting in the café-bookstore section (which most people are), your view to the pick-up side of the bar is obscured, and you keep thinking “was that my name?” It put me in a little bit of a paranoid state. Sometimes they bring food out to you, but the system isn’t clear. It would work smoother if they gave out numbers for people to set on their tables, sent you a text when your order was ready for pick-up at the bar, or even handed out buzzers. This disadvantage combined with the pricier nature of the menu is the greatest downside of the venue.
While the ordering system could use some work, the book selection is immaculate. The dark wood, backlit bookshelves house a curated collection of nearly 10,000 books across an array of genres including memoir and essay, self-help, nonfiction, middle-grade, young-adult, classics, picture books, and fiction, which is the largest section covering the far-left wall. Colorful covers are turned to the front, tangerine oranges, vibrant greens, bright pinks, and hazy reds drawing you to the shelves. You can lock eyes with titles like “I Married a Coconut,” being equally delighted and curious as I was.
After choosing a book or two — I have a feeling you could get away with reading a chapter before purchasing — you can finally get comfortable. Sipping your drink and biting into your pastry, you don’t have to worry about listening out for your name anymore. You can plug in your devices and wait for inspiration to take hold. Maybe you’ll even start forgetting the stress of the school year.
While there’s nothing wrong with getting comfortable at Bibliotheque, it can be easy to get too comfortable as the summer goes on — especially for us writers.
We tell ourselves we need a break. We just spent the whole academic year reading dense books, churning out papers, and surviving presentations. But thinking back, how much of that time was spent on our actual writing or books we wanted to read? In undergrad, I found it hard to make time for leisure reading or working on my writing outside of workshop assignments. Starting grad school, I realized if I wanted to be serious about writing, I had to make the time for it.
So while you do deserve a break this summer, don’t close your notebook and stuff it in a drawer until August. There’s a way to make some summer writing goals that aren’t insufferable.
If you’re someone who thrives on internal motivation, I recommend writing down your goals (e.g. a certain word count, page count, number of chapters, outlining) on a big canvas — whether that’s a whiteboard, bulletin board, or a poster you put up in your room. It gives you a concrete reminder to look at every day and tell yourself, “yeah, that’s why I’m doing this.” You can expand on this by physically mapping out your WIP’s outline, plot arc, or emotional character arc. I’m planning on doing this via index cards on a bulletin board this summer.
And as I’ve said before, a WIP-themed playlist is always a good decision.
Then you can track your progress using NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo, who hosts National Novel Writing Month in November, also does a Camp NaNoWriMo in July. However, you can use their website during any of the summer months (or any time of the year) to track your writing goals. This is what I’ll be doing; seeing my progress on a graph helps motivate me.
If internal motivation only gets you as far as making the goal, do writing check-ins with friends! This can include video calls where you discuss your process, a shared Google doc where you write questions and frustrations and comments, or periodical deadlines where you hold each other accountable to your goals. Promising your goal to another person can do wonders for your progress.
You can even workshop friends’ pages this summer. However, I would caution you to consider this based on your goal. If you’re just getting the bare bones of your novel, editing, or revising — workshopping can give you a good indicator of how things are working before you move forward in a new direction. But if your goal is to write as much as possible, maybe to the end of your book like me, then workshopping might get you stuck in old patterns. You should keep going forward and make notes about what you might want to change later.
I’ll be doing a mix of internal and external motivators, since my goal is rather hefty: writing two chapters per week (about 24 pages) until I reach the end of my novel or get pretty damn close. Wish me luck.
Maybe you’ll find yourself at Bibliotheque this summer. When you do, I hope you’re still sticking to your writing goals. Getting out of the house and planting yourself in a new space surrounded by creatives is also a great way to channel words from your mind onto the page (or screen). But if you don’t have the luxury of writing at a café every week, create a dedicated writing space free of distractions in your home.
Whatever your form of motivation ends up being, remember at the end of the day, only you can make this happen for yourself. I believe in you.
Since this wraps up the first year of Writes & Bites, I want to thank the people who accompanied me to the wonderful venues I reviewed: Sally Deen (MFA cohort and chai connoisseur), Kayley Cassidy (fellow NSFP series writer. Check out The New Review here!), and Christine Ro (hilarious nonfiction MFA writer and editor at The Inquisitive Eater). Shoutout to my devoted illustrator Clara Waldheim, who’s graduating this semester! You will be missed. I’d also like to thank all of you for reading, no matter if “all” means just my parents and friends or a few more.
Have a good summer, writers! I’ll be back in the fall with more Writes & Bites.
Bibliotheque also hosts evening events including authors and musical guests. Check their website or Instagram for the full schedule and any recent changes, as well as early closures for private events.
Bibliotheque
54 Mercer St.
(646) 410-0143
https://www.bibliothequenyc.com
| Commute 16 minutes from the UC via subway (6) | Hours Sun-Thurs: 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Fri-Sat: 10 a.m.-11 p.m. |
| Tech Laptops welcome 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Private Wi-Fi, password provided. Plenty of outlets. Tappable pay available. | Layout Front: bar (where you order), high tables, and counter seating. In-between: book purchase desk. Back: bookstore-café section with booths, couches, and upholstered chairs. |
| Gems Café by day and wine bar by night; extravagant bookstore-café area; book selection and floor-to-ceiling shelves; literary themed wine list. | Noise Level Conversational. |
| Atmosphere Book Club Bar’s bougie cousin. | Be Aware Get there early for a good seat. Look up café menu prices online or ask barista. Listen for your name to pick up food and drinks. Bathrooms near bar. |
| Rating 2.5/4 Stars – based on The New York Times star system: “ratings range from zero to four stars. Zero is poor, fair or satisfactory. One star, good. Two stars, very good. Three stars, excellent. Four stars, extraordinary.” |