Bob Schurtz sits in his tiny cubicle at his desk in the front and greets customers as they enter the Downtown Bookstore. Schurtz has run the store since 1978 even though it opened in 1976. The store opened in 1976 and the owners were James Madison University students and when they graduated they wanted to move.
One day Schurtz walked in and they offered to sell it to him.
“I laughed in their face but four months later I bought it,” Schurtz said.
The business has an endless amount of books, comics, VHS tapes, magazines, postcards, DVDs, journals, yearbooks, and many more.
Customer Brady Shifflett went into the store on July 8 and he bought vintage cassettes.
“I like to buy those and watch them just because it gives me that nostalgic feeling. Growing up my parents used to watch cassettes a lot,” Shifflett said.
Downtown Books has helped the community for almost fifty years by providing cheap and free books.
“For the people who don’t have a lot of money every book is under three dollars and I have free books,” Said Schurtz.
The store has a positive feeling the second you step inside. There’s no empty space in the room. It is filled with so many books it would take years to count them all. Unlike other bookstores Downtown Books has books that most people have never seen before.
“Everytime I get used books, there’s usually one or two books I’ve never seen before,” Schurtz said.
Downtown Books is hidden away in an alleyway on 57 West Water Street, so a lot of people just pass by the store thinking it is on the main street. Schurtz’s biggest problem is not enough people going into the store because it is not on the main road where everybody can see it.
Schurtz’s main goal is to sell all of the books in the store so they are not thrown away.
“Books are to be read and not thrown away,” Schurtz said.
For more information visit https://visitharrisonburgva.com/places/downtown-books/
