{"id":91182,"date":"2025-10-22T14:23:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T14:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/91182\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T14:23:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T14:23:16","slug":"the-viridian-bookshop-more-than-a-bookshop-in-downtown-willoughby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/91182\/","title":{"rendered":"The Viridian Bookshop ‘more than a bookshop’ in Downtown Willoughby"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chanel Bush is now fulfilling her lifelong dream of owning a bookshop as co-owner of The Viridian Bookshop<\/a> in Downtown Willoughby.<\/p>\n

Located at 4081 Erie St., Bush and her husband, Joseph, opened the bookshop on Oct. 4.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a grand opening celebration weekend and over 2,000 people come,\u201d Bush said. \u201cIt was insane in the best way. I\u2019ve been hearing a lot from the community and there was a hole people didn\u2019t realize they had for a space like this \u2014 communal space where you can meet people with similar interests. It\u2019s not just the books. I think it\u2019s the communal aspect of what this industry brings.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Located<\/p>\n

Located at 4081 Erie St. in Downtown Willoughby, Chanel and Joseph Bush opened The Viridian Bookshop on Oct. 4. Owning a bookshop has been Chanel’s lifelong dream. (Marah Morrison — The News-Herald)<\/p>\n

\"Located<\/p>\n

Located at 4081 Erie St. in Downtown Willoughby, Chanel and Joseph Bush opened The Viridian Bookshop on Oct. 4. Owning a bookshop has been Chanel’s lifelong dream. (Marah Morrison — The News-Herald)<\/p>\n

\"Located<\/p>\n

Located at 4081 Erie St. in Downtown Willoughby, Chanel and Joseph Bush opened The Viridian Bookshop on Oct. 4. Owning a bookshop has been Chanel’s lifelong dream. (Marah Morrison — The News-Herald)<\/p>\n

\"Located<\/p>\n

Located at 4081 Erie St. in Downtown Willoughby, Chanel and Joseph Bush opened The Viridian Bookshop on Oct. 4. Owning a bookshop has been Chanel’s lifelong dream. (Marah Morrison — The News-Herald)<\/p>\n

\"Located<\/p>\n

Located at 4081 Erie St. in Downtown Willoughby, Chanel and Joseph Bush opened The Viridian Bookshop on Oct. 4. Owning a bookshop has been Chanel’s lifelong dream. (Marah Morrison — The News-Herald)<\/p>\n

\"Located<\/p>\n

Located at 4081 Erie St. in Downtown Willoughby, Chanel and Joseph Bush opened The Viridian Bookshop on Oct. 4. Owning a bookshop has been Chanel’s lifelong dream. (Marah Morrison — The News-Herald)<\/p>\n

\"Located<\/p>\n

Located at 4081 Erie St. in Downtown Willoughby, Chanel and Joseph Bush opened The Viridian Bookshop on Oct. 4. Owning a bookshop has been Chanel’s lifelong dream. (Marah Morrison — The News-Herald)<\/p>\n

Show Caption<\/p>\n

1 of 7<\/p>\n

Located at 4081 Erie St. in Downtown Willoughby, Chanel and Joseph Bush opened The Viridian Bookshop on Oct. 4. Owning a bookshop has been Chanel’s lifelong dream. (Marah Morrison — The News-Herald)<\/p>\n

Expand<\/a><\/p>\n

Ever since she was little, Bush wanted to be surrounded by books. A memory that sparked her dream of owning a bookshop was watching \u201cNotting Hill\u201d when she was a young teenager.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can actually own a little bookstore, run it and be happy,\u201d Bush said. \u201cI\u2019ve moved a ton in my life and this is one of the best historic downtowns. I love it so much. This reminds me a lot of where I grew up in Washington. We had a historic downtown we used in a similar way.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Bush and her husband were working in the film industry, they were looking for other opportunities. When she saw the space on Erie Street available, she turned to her husband.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve loved reading my whole life and it was one of those dreams you never really tell anyone about because if you tell someone, then it\u2019ll never come true,\u201d Bush said. \u201cI was like there\u2019s this thing I\u2019ve always wanted to do. It\u2019s funny because we\u2019ve been married for 15 years and he\u2019s like, \u2018How do I not know something about you?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

As they live nearby, Bush said she frequents Downtown Willoughby. She recalls first seeing the space available last September.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when it all started,\u201d Bush said. \u201cWhat historic downtown doesn\u2019t have a bookstore? This fueled the dream when I saw that this was available, but I was like there\u2019s no way we would be able to afford the rent. We looked at it in December because I spent September through December working on my business plan \u2014 getting that solid before even approaching this place and keeping the hope that it would be available, and that we\u2019d be able to afford it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bush and her husband toured the space back in January. While it was still available, Bush said it was way out of the price range.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like well, I\u2019ve already done all this work on the business plan and this is now what I want to do with my life, so we did look at other places,\u201d she said. \u201cWe put a deposit down on a place, but I came down here for the Rib Burn-Off and had this gut feeling I needed to approach the landlords again to see if they\u2019d be willing to work with us at all. They had held this place for us. I didn\u2019t come back to them until April or May, so they had held it from January when we first looked at it. They had turned away other people because they were hoping we would come back.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the mayor, the city and to people in the community, Bush said strangers she had never met before were rooting for the new bookshop.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe negotiated a little bit, but they were fully supportive of having something new in Downtown Willoughby, but supporting and fulfilling my dream,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was a completely empty space. Everything is brand new except for the original terrazzo floors we had refinished because we wanted to keep that old-world charm.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bookshop is fiction focused, holding all sub genres of fiction including classics, children\u2019s, thrillers, mystery, young adult, sci-fi, manga, comics, graphic novels and historical fiction.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur tagline is more than a bookstore because we have spaces within the bookshop,\u201d Bush said. \u201cWe want it to be a place where people can come away from their home and their work \u2014 the third place or space as people call it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bush plans to be able to sustain the business so it can stay open, but also making the business a safe, peaceful place for people, which she has been seeing since opening.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the place people come now in the evenings to get away from the craziness in the world,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve been spearheading this, but my husband has been the most solid foundation anyone could ever dream of. I could not have done this without his support. Thinking about everything he\u2019s done \u2014 it\u2019s been amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bush plans to host more bookshop events also going forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have three events this week \u2014 a Dungeons and Dragons 101, writing meetup for sci-fi and fantasy authors or aspiring authors and yoga on Saturday with an activity afterward,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are so many things in the works. I wan tot have our own festival and during Valentine\u2019s Day, some sort of masquerade ball or something along those lines.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bookstore, present on social media and on viridianbookshop.com<\/a>, is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and closed on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chanel Bush is now fulfilling her lifelong dream of owning a bookshop as co-owner of The Viridian Bookshop…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[412,61625,61627,18172,5925,61626,146,61629,85,46,31126,738,15628,61628,61624,14558,29527],"class_list":["post-91182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-bookshop","tag-chanel-bush","tag-childrens","tag-comics","tag-downtown-willoughby","tag-entertainment","tag-graphic-novels-and-historical-fiction","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-manga","tag-mystery","tag-sci-fi","tag-sub-genres-of-fiction-including-classics","tag-the-viridian-bookshop","tag-thrillers","tag-young-adult"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}