Photos taken by Reese Poteralski
Learn more about the most magical bookstore in Knoxville
It’s no secret that local businesses make up a lot of Knoxville’s community, from bookstores to cafes to restaurants to breweries. Fable Hollow Coffee and Bookshoppe, a bookstore off of Tazewell Pike, is no different.
This bookstore was first dreamt up in 2020 by two passionate women, Alyssa Stewart and Casey Jessen. They started business in 2022 and in 2023 opened up their physical location.
“Because of Covid, I ended up getting furloughed from my corporate job and that got me thinking about career dreams I had put on hold,” Stewart said. “One of those dreams, the main one, in fact, was a bookstore.”
Coincidentally, Jessen also wanted to open a coffee shop and tavern. Though the tavern part is not incorporated into the shop yet, Stewart said that it’s an idea they’d like to try in future expansion of the business.
Fable Hollow stands out from its fellow bookstores in that it’s fantasy themed. The outside is painted beautifully each season with charming artwork and the inside is decorated with greenery that hangs from the ceiling and extends throughout the entire store, making you feel as if you are shopping in an enchanted forest.
“Casey and I both fell in love with the idea of a Germanic fairytale vibe for the branding and interior decor of the shop,” Stewart said. “We both are avid fantasy readers (and writers), and we wanted to attract ‘our people.’”
They have books of all genres in stock, with a focus on romance and fantasy. The bookstore has been described on TikTok as a store for the “romantasy girlies”. Stewart herself is a big fan of authors Rebecca Ross, Margaret Rogerson, Ali Hazelwood, and Susan Dennard. Jessen is a big fan of Emily Henry.
“We wanted to create the bookstore we were always wanting to be able to go to as a customer,” Stewart said.
Amazon and big-name bookstores like Barnes and Noble certainly present a challenge to independent bookstores. Fable Hollow is no different, and the owners have had to navigate those challenges.
“Indie bookstores are always challenged by the big box stores and Amazon offering massive discounts on books,” Stewart said. “Amazon specifically sells books at a loss simply so that they can eventually eliminate their competition. The American Booksellers Association is our representation on a larger scale to go after Amazon legally for trying to create a monopoly, but it can still be very hard to educate the general public on WHY Amazon books are so much cheaper.”
Advice that Stewart had for other small business owners who may be starting out included planning longer for renovations.
“We hit so many delays, and those can be really scary financially if you haven't budgeted for a contingency plan,” Stewart said.
For bookstore owners specifically, Stewart recommends keeping a budget and staying updated through the American Booksellers Association, which has resources for getting started and getting support if you are planning to open a bookstore.
When it comes to business, an obvious marker of success is profit. Are you making more money than you’re losing? Are you able to break even? While these are important questions, there can be other ways to measure success as well.
“For me, I consider being able to support the livelihood of our employees a mark of success,” Stewart said. “I consider the community engagement of our book clubs filling our shop and giving people meaningful connections a success. Though running a business can be tiring and can require you to give so much that at times you feel empty, I think success is the refilling that happens when you can step back, realize what you've created and truly feel the impact you have on a community and know you're making a difference in people's lives. Whether that difference is simply providing a safe space, a warm cup of coffee, and a good book or providing a job that may carry someone into retirement, I can't think of it as anything other than success.”
Fable Hollow promotes their business mainly through Instagram, where on their story they will often post updates about the shop or give an overview of new book releases. Their main customer base, according to Stewart, consists of women from ages 18-40, with some men included as well.
“I think we attract a lot of women looking for a safe space and community and a lot of our events (like book clubs and author events) help connect like minded people,” Stewart said. “We also host DND nights, which seems especially popular among couples and friends as well as singles to come and play DND with other DND lovers.”
Fable Hollow also has two book clubs: Fanciful, a romance book club and Mages and Pages, which focuses on sci-fi and fantasy. This year so far they have covered books such as ‘Starter Villain’ by Jon Scalzi and ‘Yumi and the Nightmare Panther’ by Brandon Sanderson. On the romance end, they have covered ‘Bull Moon Rising’ by Ruby Dixon and ‘Next of Kin’ by Hannah Bonam-Young.
This March also includes an author event with John Scalzi. This is only one of many author events that Fable Hollow hosts. In these events, they invite authors to come and talk about their books, writing, and interact with the readers of the community.
“In choosing which authors to submit pitches to, we always look for authors that fit with our clientele,” Stewart said.
Other events Fable Hollow hosts include midnight release parties for new books. Recently, they celebrated the release of ‘Onyx Storm’ by Rebecca Yarros, the third book in the popular Empyrean series.
So what can you get from Fable Hollow that you can’t find from Amazon or big-name bookstores? Like many small businesses, a large part of it is the community aspect.
“To be a bit broader in terms of what indie bookstores provide vs. bigger corporate bookstores, we provide a more intimate space, we hand select every single book that goes on our shelves and with every book sold, we adjust our buying to gradually curate more and more to our customers.” Stewart said. “There's nothing quite like walking into a bookstore, wandering, and finding new books you wouldn't have known about otherwise, but the Amazon and even Target competition can be difficult without ample education to the public.”
Fable Hollow’s shelves also aren’t just stocked with books. You can also find themed stickers, bookmarks, merchandise, scented candles, and more.
At the counter, you can find woven baskets stuffed with homemade pastries. These pastries can be a sweet treat to accompany the unique drink selection that Fable Hollow has. In their drink selection, Fable Hollow sells themed coffees, teas, sodas, and more. A couple standout drinks from their spring lineup this year include ‘Pixie Dream’, a ‘lavender latte with lavender ube whipped cream’, and ‘Noble Quest’, a ‘blueberry lavender sparkling lemonade’. These are only a couple of the unique drink options they have to offer, and they all come in special mugs that wouldn’t look out of place in a fantastical tavern.
“We start with flavors, either ones we just like or find interesting or ones that normally land seasonally,” Stewart said, describing their process in creating these drinks. “We then play with those flavors in different types of drinks like lattes, Americanos, teas, soda water, etc. Once we have the drinks that taste delicious, we look at how they might fit thematically, and we give them names that make sense.”
In the world of big-name bookstores that have a dose of everything at the cost of personality, Fable Hollow is a refreshing, creative environment where you can build community. You can find their calendar of events here on their website, and they also frequently update their Instagram @fablehollowbookshoppe.
