Barnes & Noble location celebrates 30 years in Orlando

Barnes & Noble Bookstore is celebrating a big milestone right now. So the store, which is in Colonial Plaza, right near the Milk District, opened in 1996. And they want to celebrate their 30th birthday in a big way. David Martin joining us live this morning with a preview of a special event they have coming up. Hi, David. Hello, Amy. Hi, John. November 1996. That's when what we're standing in opened up a Barnes & Noble two-story here on the corner of Bumby and Colonial. Patty Premi has been working here for how many years? About three years. Three at this location, but I've been with the company for 20 years. Oh, okay. I thought you were at this company. I was told 20. Three. Okay, very good. Well, welcome to Orlando. Thank you. So I will say this, it's a massive location, 40,000 square feet. I was told that your employees get a lot of their steps in when they walk around and work here. We do. Sometimes during the holidays, we can walk upwards of 25,000 square feet. thousand steps in a day. It's wild now folks haven't been inside of Barnes & Noble in a while You've got every genre potentially out there covered. I presume we do. Yeah, and it's not just books you have Games we have games books media music We sell something for everybody on your list like anything you're looking for you can get here. It's massive No question about it in a time when people are spending so much money Time on their phones. It's nice to see that people are reading again. Yeah, we've seen such an invigoration of people coming out, buying books. I mean, business has been really great. And being a part of the community and having people coming in here all the time just talking about books is incredible. It's a unique location, East Orlando. Why do you think this particular geographical spot works for you? I just think we're the hub of Central Florida. I think everybody comes here from all over the world. You have Disney, Universal. You have so many different things pulling people here. And when they go to the internet to see where they should go to buy their books. We are the one that pops up. Yeah. And it's an incredible feat. Very good. Very good. Yeah. Someone who knows about the crowds here is Jen. Jen, good morning to you. How are you? Good morning. You run the media department here. And it's part of what's called a showcase store. There's only 12 of these in the country, 12 stores that are this large with this much material. Media meaning DVDs, records, and games, right? Absolutely. Yeah. So in fact, you have the largest collection of vinyl. In the country for Barnes & Noble. As far as I know, yeah. Our movie selection is quite huge, too. Are people actually buying records today? Oh, absolutely. You'd be surprised. I would be surprised. And these are all new records. They're not old records. So these are being manufactured today. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I'm kind of shocked. Do you listen to records yourself? Yeah. Yeah. Records, CDs, all of that. All right. Physical media does matter. No question about it. In the back here, you have a large Criterion collection. What does Criterion collection mean? Criterion. Criterion is basically a company that puts out the highest quality movies in pristine formats, great films that shouldn't be forgotten to history. Are some of them like independent films, too? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Okay. It's all across the board. International films, everything. Cult classics. Yeah, folks who collect media know Criterion Collection. In fact, you're giving away a very large one. Where is that? Is that right here? Right here, yeah. So this is an eight. $100 box set. You're giving this away this weekend? We sure are. With a raffle. With a raffle, yes. This is going to be free to a lucky winner. What's in there? How many movies? There are 40 of the best Criterion Blu-rays in the series. Can you turn around and see the title of it here? Yes, absolutely. I can't read that. Oops. It's called CC40. All right. I believe you. So 40 Blu-rays. All right, 40. And how do you get a raffle ticket for that? So all you have to do is show us at the store that you are following us on Facebook or Instagram. Just a social media platform. It will give you three tickets to enter one of our raffles and this is the big one. Well, good luck with that. Let's meet the last person here of the staff here who's going to tell us about the big party this weekend. It's a three-day celebration. Three-day celebration, Friday through Sunday. Her name is Jackie. Jackie, how long have you been working here at Barnes & Noble? You said eight years, right? Eight years with the company. Eight years with the company. Two years here. Two years here. And what time does the party start on Friday? Oh, the party starts really early on Friday with our K-pop event. So we've got a big pop-up event for a band called ATEEZ. Will there be a band here? No, just their stuff. So just their vinyls and some other gifts and things like that. But that'll be really exciting. So that starts early on Friday. And then Saturday and Sunday, you have events too. Saturday, we have a local author night with authors like Madison Rupp, Christina Evers, Elle Kish, Taylor Simmons. And then Sunday, we have local author and store favorite, James Ponte, who's a kid's author, who will be here. I love the fact that you're celebrating local authors. All right. Barnes & Noble, big three-day celebration to celebrate 30 years. John and Amy, I may have done a few interviews with some politicians here back in the day when they come and sign their books in Orlando. There used to be crowds going up and down the escalators here to get the autograph. So they've been a staple in town for many years. Congratulations on your success. Thank you. And we're still doing all those events. So please follow us on social media and come to one of our upcoming events. It'll be great. John and Amy, have you been to this particular Barnes & Noble location? I haven't. But John says he has, and his daughter goes every day. She is probably, and I'm not even exaggerating, probably three or four times a week, David. She's always there, drives all the way there. Daughter goes every day. I love that. They probably know her. That's amazing. Hopefully she's had some great service here. You might know her, yeah. She hangs out in the books What books does she like? I don't know, John. Everything. Mysteries. You know, David, I think she just likes the vibe. There's something about bookstores like that. Just being in that environment just kind of chills you out. And I love it. That's a good spot. 100%. Thank you, David. Meanwhile, Orlando's very first Barnes & Noble bookstore is celebrating a major milestone, and we're all hoping to smell those books from here. Love the smell of new books. All right, this shop is in Colonial Plaza. It's right near the Milk District, and it opened all the way back on November 19th, 1996. So they are about to celebrate 30 years, and they've got some special things planned. Let's check in with David Martin. He's joining us live this morning with the smell of books. Hi, David. It smells great in here, but that's also because the Barnes & Noble Cafe is cooking up something special for the party this week and celebrating 30 years. If you've not been to a Barnes & Noble lately, the one to come to is on East Colonial. It's considered a showcase store because it's 40,000 square feet large. It's got two stories, hundreds of genres of books. It makes me realize I could spend an absolute fortune in here, not just for Christmas, but any time of the year. And they're saying reading, thank goodness, is making a comeback. You know what? What else is making a comeback? Media, physical media. Right here, I'm holding the number one all-time selling jazz album in the world. It's the Vince Guaraldi Trio performing a Charlie Brown Christmas. New vinyl is a thing. DVDs, they're still selling them here because people are still collecting physical media. So it's not all on the phone. They got tons of puzzles, games, children's toys, magazines, local authors. If you need to get your kid back into reading again, come on a rainy day or a cold day and spend an afternoon or an entire day here at Barnes and Noble run by a terrific staff here. We're meeting them this morning live. Well, hello, Patty Premi. How are you? I'm good. How are you? You've been with the company 20 years. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Making a big announcement this morning here live on the air. Every year you do Books of the Year based on Barnes & Noble staff, correct? Yeah. So every year our company puts out wonderful books and the staff all gets, around the entire nation, gets to vote on their favorite books of the year. And this year we're really happy to announce the books that our booksellers have selected as our Books of the Year. Let's start with the one you have in your hand. All right. So this is the Kids Picture Book of the Year. Is this a plum? It looks like a plum to me. It's not a plum. It is... A butt? It's a rhino butt. It's a rhino bum. Do one more. One more. Is this a spider? It sure looks like a spider. Oh, no, it's not a spider. It's a tiger. Oh, adorable. The kids will love that. All right, what's the next step up from the Children's Gift Book of the Year? So we're going to go to Jackie. All right, hang on. I'm going to come to you. Hello, Jackie. How are you? Oh, good. So this is for kids? Young readers, yeah. So the age range for this is 6 to 12. So this is the story of an unlikely friendship between a rescue dog and a cheetah cub. Oh. Oh, very good. And next up? Next up, we have our Fiction Pick of the Year, Will Harbour. It's a sweeping family drama about a grieving father making choices for his 11 sons. And you're reading it right now, and you've already cried in the first 30 pages. Yes, I have. Yes. There you go, Amy and Stephanie. But it's a book for everyone. It's really lovely. You sold me on it, and that's what you do. You sell books. It's my job. And then this one, Vast, The Vast Enterprise, is a new sweeping novel about the Lewis and Clark expedition. New information. Yes, new information. Some information about the side characters that helped them on their expedition. Let's take a walk and a ride up the escalator because you do have one. Jackie, I had asked you what you think your top, and Patty as well, I asked you what your top genres are here in the Orlando store because every store is a little bit different. But in Orlando, you think the number one genre is? Romanticy. Romanticy. Today I learned that's a new word. It's a combination of? Romance and fantasy. Romance and fantasy. Also big here in Orlando, history. Yes, we have a huge history section as well and coming out for that. People keep coming out. Three-day celebration starting Friday. You do not want to miss it celebrating 30 years. What's happening on Friday? So tomorrow is the first day of our three-day ATEEZ K-pop pop-up event. Starts real early tomorrow. Then Saturday, we have a local author, kind of like a book fair event that will be up here. Local authors will be talking to you about their books. And then Sunday, we have local fan favorite, James Ponte, who's a children's author, who will be here talking about his novels as well. We get a lot of steps and dancing in here in the store. And here's something important to get to our audience. You do a big charity event helping children who are experiencing homelessness. And what are you asking us to do? Yeah, so we, every year, Barnes & Noble, every store selects a different nonprofit organization where we can donate books to. This year, we have selected the McKinney-Vento Foundation with Orange County Public Schools. And we are asking the community to come out, purchase a new book to donate to a child. The books truly do go to all the kids. A lot of these kids don't, have the luxury of us to just get a brand new book whenever they want. So it's really wonderful that we can give back to the community in this capacity. And Amy said it best. She likes the smell of a new book and we all do as well. And so do kids and the pages are so silky. All right. You've heard it all here. Three day party tomorrow. Stephanie and Amy, Barnes & Noble celebrating 30 years. Congratulations to both of you. More to come in our next hour. Back to you in the studio. Orlando's very first Barnes & Noble bookstore is celebrating a major milestone. So this is the one in Colonial Plaza. It's right near the Milk District. And it opened almost to the day 30 years ago. So they are about to celebrate their 30th birthday. And I was just saying my daughter's birthday was yesterday. Guess where she went? Where? This exact Barnes & Noble. She goes there three to five times a week where David Martin is this morning because it is a, it's such a cool bookstore. If you haven't been to this one. It's amazing. It's huge. And David Martin. It's huge. David Martin joins us now with more. I have a favorite movie quote, John. You know what it is? Wendy. What is that one? What movie? Oh, Hannibal. Wendy. Okay. What is that one? The Shining. It's when Jack Nicholson is going after his wife. Ah, gotcha. Wendy. He's got the axe. Red rum. Wendy. Randy. Red rum. Yeah, 100%. Listen, you two and three, how many are on the desk? Three of you. Say hi to my two here out in the field. Say hi to Patty and Jackie. They run the Barnes and Noble on East Colonial celebrating 30 years this weekend. My goodness, back in November of 1996, what book came out? It was the first book in Game of Thrones, which is still not finished. Still not finished, forever not finished, but yeah. And we discovered the number one book For 1996, that month is? Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. I don't know. I can tell by your face. I have no idea why he's asking me. Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. It was the number one grossing book that year. It doesn't seem like that long ago, does it? It doesn't. Look at this view. My gosh, we're on the second story of this glorious store on the corner of Bumby and Colonial. Back in the day, it didn't have things like... Uh... I guess it wouldn't have records. It would have had CDs and all that. But you have multiple genres, new genres. What are some fun genres that have come out in the past couple of years that would not have been around in 1996? Yeah, or at least celebrated. Like in science fiction, there's cyberpunk, space opera, dystopian. Those are all really fun subgenres. And they sell big time here. Yeah, they're doing really well. I think people want to escape... And what's really fun about sci-fi lately is there's a lot of books that are hopeful. Think like Project Hail Mary. Oh, I got it right, right, right. Oh, such a good book. Have you ever done an interview on a moving escalator? This is pretty cool. I haven't, but now I can say I have. Now we're heading into the kids section here, which takes up a lot of real estate. It does. It does. It's one of our favorite sections of the store. My kids used to grow up playing with the trains. Do you still have the trains here? We actually have a train table we're about to put out shortly. We just got a new one in. Oh, good. They have the kids to wear that out. No question about it. But it's not just books for kids. It's toys. It's plushies. It's everything that could fill up a toy room or a bedroom. No question about it. My gosh. Puzzles and games and Legos everywhere. It goes on and on out here. It does. It really does. It's just such a great place to be because every child starts here as well. We should make a mention, this is considered a showcase store. There are only 12 showcase Barnes & Nobles in the entire country. You have more than 700 locations, but Orlando has the privilege and the honor to have one of the 12 showcase stores because of this back room, the media room. When I say media, I mean physical DVDs and record albums online. That people buy to take home and keep. And there's this very special one. Tell me what that is, Patty. So this is our CC40. Yeah, so this weekend we are doing a really incredible raffle with our partnership with... Right. With Criterion. So we're going to be raffling off one of these. Now, can you bring down the Stanley Kubrick one? Is that what the red one was? Yes, that is. That's a unique one. That's every Stanley Kubrick movie put into a box set. This is right now typically $600? It is, and it's half off right now. So you can get it for around $340, give or take. Because of the 30th anniversary. No, for the 50% off sale with Criterion. Oh, they have their own anniversary. They have their own anniversary. Oh, my gosh. Okay, so we're all celebrating something. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. Put two of those in the bucket. One for me, one for Paolo. All right, so when you come out here this weekend, Jackie, it's Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Tomorrow, it starts at what time, the big party? I believe we open at 8 a.m. tomorrow. 8 a.m. tomorrow, okay. We're the 80s pop-up, so that's a K-pop band. So there's lots of fun things, giveaways, and different merch, and a bunch of the albums. Then Saturday night, we have our local author kind of book fair that will be upstairs. We have seven local authors, and then Sunday, we'll have James Ponti, who's a young reader's author. He will be here. Yes. It's so big we got lost. It's a giant maze in this store. Good Lord. But that is the best place you get lost. It's 100%. You come here and you never come back. You still sell Madden Magazine. Oh, my God. Today, I learned there's a special drink you're offering this weekend as you wrap up here. Go ahead and tell me what that is, Patty. What's it called? It's going to be our birthday cake latte. So it's going to have sugar-free, I'm sorry, sugar cookie syrup. It's going to have vanilla and white mocha in it. And we made one for you to try today. Oh, my gosh. That looks terrific. Have a couple of these and you'll never leave the store. You'll spend all kinds of money. And that's the idea here. Barnes & Noble celebrating 30 years. Come get a birthday cake latte. Okay. Pick up some gifts for your family. If you don't walk out of here with something, you're doing it wrong. I mean, we have something for everyone on your list. Everyone, truly. 30 years. Do you think you'll still be here 30 years from now? I say another 100 years, we'll still be here. We'll do live shots in 2056, talking about what we did in 26. I love that. All right, Amy and John and Jessica, we're going to send it back to you. Thank you, Patty and Jackie. Appreciate your time. Congrats again. I could go there.