The old wooden floors creak like a houseboat on an ebb tide, books spill out of the floor-to-ceiling stacks, and finding anything requires a map, or at least the assistance of a store clerk.
With its disheveled charm, Green Apple Books has not only thrived as a Richmond district favorite, it has also mustered a recent and unlikely expansion to other neighborhoods in the face of a double threat: San Francisco’s high cost of doing business, and the omnipresent specter of the online-retailer-who-shall-not-be-named.
But thriving is relative, at least by co-owner Pete Mulvihill’s lights. “The only reason why we’re still here is because enough people came in and bought something,” he says with a laugh. “So, we try to give them what they want.”
Mulvihill is as unpretentious as Green Apple’s flagship store itself, which began in 1967 in a tiny space on Clement Street and has expanded to 8,000 square feet across two storefronts, parts of which feel like a favorite sweater with a warm, if somewhat tight-fitting, embrace.
The store and its annex are crammed with 100,000 items, mostly books, but also magazines, CDs, LPs, and gifts, along with quirky nooks and crannies where visitors can settle in with a good read and lose themselves. (One favorite: a retro wooden school desk in a quiet corner of the philosophy section.)
Even more inviting, the store’s hours (open until 10:30 or 11 at night) mimic a lot of other “third places,” like gyms, cafés, and bars, where people like to congregate beyond home or work.
“Green Apple is the heart of Clement Street — they anchor that neighborhood and beyond,” says Calvin Crosby, executive director of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association.
On a recent afternoon, actors in red and gold 49ers gear were out front, high-fiving and fist-bumping the store’s wooden mascot. A local TV sports crew was filming and planned to weave the shots into a neighborhood montage to spice up the weekend’s football playoff coverage. Asked why they picked Green Apple, a crew member said, “Everyone in the city probably knows it.”
The store was named Publishers Weekly’s Bookstore of the Year in 2014.
John Gray, 72, browsing in the food section, says he has been a customer “for decades, literally,” since he moved to San Francisco in 1979. When asked about his favorite section, he shrugs: “The whole store.”
Lots of urban neighborhoods have beloved bookstores. What sets Green Apple apart, however, is that they’ve rolled the dice that the love will flow into other locations.
Mulvihill and co-owner Kevin Ryan took over the former Le Video space in the Inner Sunset near Golden Gate Park in August 2014, and last fall, they bought Browser Books, saving the Fillmore Street store from extinction.
San Francisco is a very expensive place to do business.
Pete Mulvihill, Green Apple co-owner
The expansion was more out of necessity than prosperity, says Mulvihill. Expenses have gone up over the years, but sales have been flat. Mulvihill and Ryan hope to use economies of scale and spread costs across multiple outlets. “Some people have said to me, ‘Wow, three stores! Green Apple must be crushing it!’ It’s almost the opposite,” Mulvihill says. “If we didn’t grow the top line by expanding, it would be harder and harder every year [to survive].” He says there are no plans for more expansion anytime soon.
Author readings, discussions, and signings are now an integral part of the indy bookstore playbook, and the 9th Avenue location fills that role for Green Apple. It’s a better design for hosting events, a conventional, boxy, 3,000 square-foot space, and they’ve equipped it with moveable shelves on wheels. Nearly all Green Apple’s events are there, according to the online calendar. (The Clement store has a cramped upstairs space, more hallway than room.) Mulvihill says events are a way to forge community connections and support writers and artists, but they weren’t the driving factor in the expansion, and he wouldn’t say how important they are to Green Apple’s bottom line.
The price of a hardcover in Iowa
In the roller-coaster world of retail, Green Apple has had some advantages. Independent booksellers are actually one of the few businesses that have made nimble adjustments in the age of Amazon, which launched as an online bookstore (remember that?) in 1995. After a steady decline, the American Booksellers Association has seen 10 consecutive years of membership growth. Nationally, independent store sales have been up a healthy 7.5 percent the past five years, according to Crosby. “The stores that survived the 2008 economic downturn are stronger and smarter at approaching their business model,” he adds.
San Francisco has been somewhat spared from the so-called “retail apocalypse,” but conditions are tough enough to spur plenty of concern and legislative fixes, some proposed, some already enacted.
“San Francisco is a very expensive place to do business,” says Mulvihill, despite securing long-term leases for all three locations and special city grants because of its “legacy business” status. “Books come with a price set by the publisher. A $25 hardcover in Iowa is a $25 hardcover here, but the rent and labor in Iowa is half of what it is here.”
Mulvihill says he has much more discretion over the price of a tote bag, for example, than a new book. Music, cards, clothes, games, and many other knickknacks now account for about 15 percent of sales.
Books, of course, still rule the roost, and Green Apple has to be nimble to meet customer demands. Mulvihill and Ryan analyze sales data and alter inventory accordingly. “They also hire knowledgeable staff and provide training to keep them the experts you expect when purchasing books,” says Crosby.
A third of Green Apple’s 45 employees — most of whom belong to the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5 — have worked there more than five years. Some have hit the 20-year mark. Working at Green Apple, which also buys and sells used books, provides constant mind-expanding exposure to customers’ collections.
“If you go to the average new-book store for a book on Irish history, you might find several, but we have a couple of shelves’ worth and books that you wouldn’t normally see,” says Martin Sorensen, a Green Apple staffer for more than 10 years. “There’s a book about journalists who covered the Troubles and another called ‘Dublin’s Great Wars’ about the First World War, the Easter Rising, and the Irish Civil War. You get a much broader range.”
“I like how the staff recommend different selections,” says Amanda, 19, who lives in the Outer Richmond and was browsing with her friend Jacelle, also 19. “I’m really into dystopian fiction. There’s a lot here to scope out.”
A friendly takeover
Mulvihill never imagined he’d be where he is today. A native of Bethesda, Maryland, he moved to San Francisco with his college roommate and landed a temp bookkeeping job at Green Apple in 1993. The original owner, Richard Savoy, was soon looking for an exit. In 1997, he asked Mulvihill, who had assumed more responsibility at the shop, and co-workers Ryan and Kevin Hunsager if they were interested in buying the business over a 10-year period. Savoy continued to own the building and earn rental income. In 2008, the three individuals took full ownership of Green Apple. (Hunsager sold his share to Mulvihill and Ryan in 2018. Savoy also sold the building to an outside party. The bookstore pays market-rate rent, but Mulvihill declined to say how much.)
Mulvihill lives in the Outer Sunset with his wife and school-age twins. He knows community engagement works both ways. Events are good for business and for civic life. Also, Green Apple donates to more than 100 schools and nonprofits each year and supports events such as Litquake and One City One Book. “I feel that all the little connections we’ve made over the years have helped sustain the store,” says Mulvihill.
“Sustain” is about as enthusiastic as Mulvihill will get. He enjoys behavioral economics and, as an open-water swimmer, books with aquatic themes. But if he were a Shakespearean figure, he might be Hamlet, fretting around the palace. (Or if you’re browsing the children’s section, how about Winnie the Pooh’s gloomy donkey friend Eeyore?) “My wife will tell you that I’ve been saying the sky is falling for the past 20 years, but the sky is still there,” notes Mulvihill. “I think I operate from a place of fear, but I’m reassured every year.”
For Green Apple’s customers, that’s reassuring too.
