Our story

Established in 1990

When after the year 1989, books we previously couldn’t even dream of were starting to be published, we began ordering them not only for ourselves but also for our friends. This circle grew larger and we approached the idea of opening up a bookshop as a cultural endeavor, similarly to organizing of concerts and author talks (looking back we regret not taking more photos during this time and thus photos from the concerts of Garáž, Nerez, Zóna A and many others along with photos of our very first shop don’t exist…)
It was then when we thought of the possibility of doing this for a living. We had three small children. I was on maternity leave and Igor worked as an operator at a boiler room while studying philosophy in Bratislava part-time.
We sold books to the public for the first time on the street during Palanok 1990. We only became booksellers with time, although our fist shop on Kupecka street was opened soon after. Our opening hours were from 15:00 to 18:00 and the lines of people waiting outside of our shop resembled the lines once common at the butchers. The shop could only fit three people + the bookseller and if a taller person spread their arms, they could touch the walls. The shop was therefore named appropriately as MINI – GRAMO – KNIHY (MINI – VYNILS – BOOKS).

Around two years later we moved to a newly acquired space by Umelecka Beseda at Kupecka 7 where we remained until 2017. Proceeding to this was an unsuccessful attempt to move to space at Kupecka 8, despite plenty of recommendation letters (from the Ministry of Culture or Charta 77) space was given to Remedium bookshop. I must admit that the feeling that this could have been our space stayed with me and I was reminded of it each time passing the shop.

When we heard that the space was going to be available to rent in 2012, we submitted an application in an attempt to acquire the space. We didn’t make any phone calls, didn’t ask for any support, which is why we were surprised when our application was successful. We knew that the city decided to sell the building of Kupecka 7 and so we thought: Let’s move the antique books there and if we are forced to move later we will move the bookshop there.

“Let’s not fill up the whole space then and let’s create a seating area for the customers so they can comfortably look through the books” said Igor. “Yes, great idea” I agreed. “We can then replace the chairs with the bookshelves. Since we’ll have seating already, perhaps we could also offer coffee, and if we have a CAFÉ, we could employ people with disabilities” I suggested.

This is how it went- we purchased used furniture from individuals along with its stories and after bringing it all in and assembling it, we were surprised how cozy the space became. In June 2012, 3 months after submitting the application we moved in.

  • Palánok — prvý krát predávame knihy

    potom sme predávali na ulici - na rohu Štefánikovej a Palárikovej.

  • MINI — GRAMO — KNIHY

    v malom už neexistujúcom obchodíku pri nábytku Bruckner

  • už ako Kníhkupectvo a antikvariát Pod Vŕškom

    na Kupeckej 7

    do roku 2017

  • otvárame nový obchod Antikvariát a libresso

    na Kupeckej 8

  • Na Kupeckú 8 sťahujeme aj kníhkupectvo z Kupeckej 7

V r. 2017 sa budova na Kupeckej 7 predala a Kníhkupectvo dostalo výpoveď z prenájmu. Hľadali sme vhodné priestory kam kníhkupectvo presťahovať, ale napokon sme ho presunuli na Kupeckú 8. Medzičasom sme sa ale rozrástli a lámali sme si hlavu ako to spraviť tak, aby sme „nezabili“ tri prevádzky jednou „ranou“. Zdal sa to neriešiteľný rébus. Akoby zázrakom do toho vstúpili traja architekti – Martin a Lívia Dulíkoví a Lenka Lovišková a nemožné sa stalo možným. Výsledok nás potešil všetkých a aj keď je stále čo zlepšovať, už teraz sa cítime v kompaktnom priestore veľmi dobre a veríme že to tak vnímajú aj naši zákazníci.

vernisaz

speciality bookstore

from the large selection of available books, we select what we believe is the best

we have experience

we have been selling books for 34 years. Since 1990

we select the best

not only for our bookshop, but also the coffeeshop. Our products are mostly locally sourced and organic

we care for the needs of others

we have been employing people with disabilities since 2006

we are eco-friendly

we aim to recycle as much as we can, using recycled materials for the packaging of your online order, all of our single use utensils are compostable and we use eco-friendly cleaning products…

our prices are fair

we don’t strive to be the cheapest, but we offer discounts from retail prices and our antique books are priced competitively

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