Gephardt: Local Bookstore Adapts, Thrives After Closing Doors During the Pandemic

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Looking around at the hustle and bustle, you would never know that the King’s English Bookshop has not reopened its doors to customers — at least not in the traditional way. 

Nestled in the 15^th and 15^th walking neighborhood, King’s English has shut their doors to walk-in customers.

“Business is different,” said co-owner Anne Holman. “It’s different, but busy.” 

King’s English has adapted to online only and for them, it is working like gangbusters. 

Customers place orders online then show up in person to pick up their orders outside, kind of like you have seen curbside delivery at restaurants. 

For those who homebound or scared to leave their homes, King’s English will also deliver within Salt Lake County. 

“We have a delivery team that goes out every day, mostly Monday through Friday, and delivers the books to them that way and that’s free,” Holman said. 

While Holman jokes they are not exactly giving giants like Amazon a run for their money, she emphasized her local shop can get just about any book that the big boys can. 

“Shop at your local restaurants. Shop at your local bookstores,” she said. “Everything local you can do right now is going to make Salt Lake City and Utah emerge from this healthier and happy.”

 Being willing and able to adapt has King’s English weathering the COVID-19 storm, but other businesses simply cannot adapt in the same ways and are not faring as well.

Wednesday on KSL 5 News at 10, the KSL Investigators take a hard look at some of the businesses teetering on the edge. We’ll show you the data for what businesses can do to survive and, try as best we can to answer the questions we all have: “Are our favorite stores going to make it?”

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