Why America’s oldest book shop decided to go independent

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When Moravian University took over America’s oldest bookstore in 2018, the retail experience was closer to a knickknack shop than anything else. Managed by the Moravian Church to provide pension revenue for ministers, the Moravian Book Shop in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, had taken an eclectic turn that wasn’t great for business.

“They had cooking pots and pans. They had penny candy. It was anything under the sun, and people loved it, because it was like grandma’s attic,” Moravian University President Bryon Grigsby told Retail Brew. “But not everybody was buying.”

So after the university took over the location, it partnered with Barnes & Noble Education—which spun off from Barnes & Noble in 2015—to help stabilize its finances. That process involved removing items from the store that weren’t selling and bringing fresh inventory that would attract buyers. The combination of local leadership and corporate expertise ultimately allowed a shop founded in 1745 to get a new lease on life.

Now, after eight years as a typical university bookstore with a combination of student merchandise, trade books, and best-sellers, the store is going independent again at another crucial juncture in its 300-plus-year history.

“The corporate dictates that run Barnes & Noble—those have worked for us in that period of time, but they’re not working anymore,” Grigsby said.

More flexibility: The impetus for the return to local management was the designation of the store, along with other Moravian Church sites in Bethlehem, as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2024. The university saw the new status as an opportunity, and wanted to change up the store’s inventory and merchandising accordingly, but Barnes & Noble Education wasn’t able to offer them that flexibility, according to Grigsby.

“We wanted to see a different kind of product being sold to our families, and we wanted to see more connection to the unique history of Bethlehem,” he said. “And they weren’t able to deliver that.”

Now the goal is to bring in more local artists and books about local history, in particular those related to the Moravian Church, a Protestant denomination that predates the Reformation.

Moravian University CFO Mark Reed emphasized that it isn’t a knock on Barnes & Noble Education’s management, which is exactly what the store needed at the time of its partnership, but simply a lack of compatibility between a more corporate approach and a local business with unique needs and opportunities.

“I think we just would be blowing the doors off the Barnes & Noble model,” he said.

• Barnes & Noble Education’s original parent company, Barnes & Noble, has notably made a comeback in recent years by giving its store managers more flexibility in purchasing and merchandising. However, this pivot happened in 2020, years after B&N Education was spun off.

Best of both worlds: Yet making sure the business remains financially viable is “non-negotiable,” Grigsby said, so whatever new direction the store takes has to serve that goal.

Much of the professionalized business operation that Barnes & Noble stood up will remain as a result, he added, thanks in part to the assistance of Angelina Carvalhal, CEO of ANC Consulting. Carvalhal, who previously worked at Barnes & Noble Education as head of institutional partnerships, will help keep the store on track.

“I’m constantly looking at the business and assessing and looking at the data to ensure that they are staying relevant with the purchases that they’re making,” she said.

Carvalhal is currently spearheading what she calls a “makeover” designed to give the store a little more “flair,” in addition to becoming more responsive to what the community is looking for in the store—changes which the store’s independence will make easier.

“Going independent and working locally gives the school tremendous leverage to be able to chart their own path,” she said.