Beaverdale Books has grown a lot over the past 20 years, and it’s looking forward to the next 20.
This article includes an optional audio read-aloud for easier accessibility.
Beaverdale Books sponsored this article.
Beaverdale Books was the first independent bookstore to open its doors in Des Moines, Iowa. Coming up on its 20th anniversary in July 2026, the shop’s owners look back on two decades of change, an author community, global challenges, and hanging out with the neighbors.
A Community’s Desire
Alice Meyer, founder and co-owner of Beaverdale Books, says she’d long dreamed of opening a bookstore. However, it wasn’t until her children needed books for school that she realized the need for a good bookseller in Beaverdale.
“I would get that call at three o’clock in the afternoon — I need this book by tomorrow — and the only bookstore downtown would already be closed by the time I got off work,” Meyer says.
Frustrated by this inconvenience, Meyer decided it was time to make her dream a reality for herself and every bookbuyer in Beaverdale. After doing some research, she found a one-week program through the American Booksellers Association. She traveled to Denver, Colorado, to take the class.
After the program, the only questions left for her were where to open her store and when.
“I knew I wanted to be in Beaverdale, the perfect place for it, and it still took about two years to find the location, till something opened up,” Meyer says. “And when it did, it all kind of took off from there.”
The First Couple of Years
When Beaverdale Books opened its doors in 2006, the shop made little profit. For the first four years, Meyer would still work her day job, spending nights and weekends at the bookstore.
The work wasn’t easy — or profitable, at least in the traditional sense. “It’s true what they say about small businesses,” Meyer says. “You can go through [it] for a couple of years before you see any gain from it. And bookstores have notoriously low margins anyway, so it makes it even a little more difficult for us.”
Over the past few years, independent bookstores have experienced a surprising resurgence. AP News reported that more than 200 bookstores opened in 2023 alone, with nearly 200 more expected in the years that followed. Even in Iowa, this renewed momentum is evident: in Des Moines, two new shops — Nos Books and Shelf Love DSM — opened in 2025.
This growth is striking when you consider how different the landscape once looked. In the early 2000s, bookstore openings were rare. According to the American Booksellers Association, in a press release, it said only 97 member stores opened in 2006 — just seven more than the year before. And at the time, the broader business climate wasn’t exactly encouraging; the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 79.2 percent survival rate for businesses in the West North Central region, a reminder that small retail, including bookstores, has always been a tough industry.
Yet despite thin profit margins, shifting consumer habits, and even recent political debates over book access, independent bookstores have pushed into a period of meaningful growth. Owners like Meyer at Beaverdale Books have been part of that movement—standing up for books, for community spaces, and for the belief that stories still matter.
Challenges Over the Past 20 Years
Julie Goodrich, an employee at Beaverdale Books for more than 15 years, has helped the shop adapt to significant technology changes over time — reaching out to the community means something different than it did when the shop opened, and a neighbor’s recommendation was your only source.
Starting out as a regular bookseller, Goodrich began to familiarize herself with the store’s digital database until she realized she was much more comfortable with the technology than her coworkers. The shop received a grant that enabled it to launch a Yahoo business page, and over time, Goodrich helped build a fully developed website to better connect with customers online. The process was costly back then, requiring a local company to format the site and incur charges for every change, so to avoid those fees, Goodrich adapted to become a web developer and now oversees the production of the website.
Photo: Shylee Saladi.
“We really needed somebody here who could update, copy, change pictures,” Goodrich says. “And with my library science degree, [I] turned into a web developer.”
Hunter Gillum, the other co-owner of Beaverdale Books, started at the shop when it needed more physical storage space and better contacts with publishers. Before Gillum, Meyer was in charge of accounting, bookkeeping, buying, marketing, and the newsletter. And she needed help. Luckily, Gillum was ready, and added to the staff’s skill set with connections to publishers across the country, which helps inform Beaverdale Books’ staff what types of books are trending with readers.
Steady growth, with the right staff at the right time, has been a recurring theme that’s helped the shop remain fruitful despite a recession, long-term neighborhood construction, and a global pandemic.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, I remember talking to [a customer], coordinating with her grandmother, buying books for them over the phone, and then another relative coming to pick it up,” Gillum says.
Community Support
Beaverdale Books’ owners attribute a large part of its success to the neighborhood it’s named after.
“I think that we’re just as invested in the community as they are in us,” Goodrich says. “It’s very much a reciprocal relationship, and I think you feel that when you walk in the door.”
Gillum says that the store’s neighbors make Beaverdale Books a part of their afternoon walk, which really allows everyone to get to know one another.
“I mean, I just recently had a baby, and one of the book clubs here got gifts for us, which was completely unnecessary but was sort of surprising,” Gillum says.
Through these relationships, community events like local author readings and festivals have flourished over the years — even grown. One of the shop’s most popular events is the Banned Books Festival.
“We sold like 250 tickets overnight, after they had announced it,” Gillum says. “[It’s] still the biggest event we’ve done, but it was the first one that we’ve done of that kind of size.”
At the event, the store highlights banned books and authors who’ve had their books banned by U.S. legislation. A couple of years ago, they partnered with the Penguin Random House Banned Wagon, which made a stop in Des Moines to provide banned books, for free, as well as educational resources on how to join the fight for reading freedom.
But the shop doesn’t just advocate for high-profile issues. Beaverdale Books has always been a stalwart supporter of local and Iowa authors.
“So many local authors come in asking to sell their book,” Meyer says. “I had no idea there were so many out there.”
Due to this community support, they eventually ran out of room to store more books, and the store will expand soon, knocking down a wall to expand into the building next door to make more room on the shelves, and provide more space for their children’s section.
“I just respect anybody who is just going to say they’re going to write a book and get it done and get it published,” Meyer says. “I think they deserve that attention, their moment in the sun, and right now we have probably about 800 local authors on the shelf.”
The Next 20 Years
As of right now, the owners of Beaverdale Books say their collective focus is on expansion, but they’re hoping to throw a grand reopening by the time their anniversary comes around next summer.
“I don’t know if we’ll do anything over the top. We’ll see what Jan, [the Beaverdale Books events and marketing coordinator], cooks up for the actual anniversary,” Gillum says.
Until then, Beaverdale Books’ staff says they’ll continue making room for anyone who steps into their store, seeing to it that they’ll leave with a good book and maybe even meet at least one new person in their neighborhood.
“Relationships, that’s why we’re here,” Goodrich says. “It’s the customer relationship, the author relationships, and the community relationships.”