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Green Apple Books Celebrates 50th Anniversary With Evening Variety Show
- By Liz Button
Printer-friendly versionGreen Apple Books in San Francisco, California, will celebrate 50 years in business next month with Green Apple Books’ 50th Anniversary Jubilee, a variety show to be held at the city’s Great American Music Hall.
According to Green Apple’s website, the event will be “a not-to-miss variety show celebrating the wonderment and weirdness of San Francisco’s landmark indie bookstore.” Green Apple co-owner Pete Mulvihill said the store got some organizing help from Porchlight SF, a local storytelling series run by Arline Klatte and Beth Lisick.
“I’m not an expert in entertaining people, but Beth and Arline are really good at it, so a while ago I reached out to them to see if they would help us put on an evening celebration,” said Mulvihill. “Together we reached out to a bunch of local writers, artists, and musicians and put together a lineup. They did some venue-hunting to try to find something that would be big enough to be grand but small enough that we could fill it; we went with the Great American Music Hall because it’s a very cool, old, storied building.”
The evening’s special guests will include authors Mary Roach, Robin Sloan, Willy Vlautin, and Robert Mail Anderson; illustrator Wendy McNaughton; musicians Andy Cabic of Vetiver and Thao of The Get Down Stay Down; and Michael Krasny of KQED Radio’s Forum, among others. Most of the evening’s performers are associated with the store in some way, either as customers or as authors who have appeared there. Tickets for the Wednesday, September 6, show are currently on sale for $25.
The store’s founder, Richard Savoy, opened the Green Apple Books flagship location at 506 Clement Street in 1967; since then, Green Apple has gone from a 750-square-foot store open on evenings and weekends to an 8,000-square-foot store open seven days a week, 13 hours a day, and employing 35 or 36 people, said Mulvihill. Last year, Green Apple was one of the first businesses to receive legacy business status from the city of San Francisco.
“The first store was really small and only sold used books and magazines, but it gradually expanded, first width-wise and then upstairs, then adding a side room, so it’s this kind of piecework maze of a store that has gradually, organically expanded over the years,” said Mulvihill.
The store’s current three owners — Mulvihill, Kevin Ryan, who specializes in new books, and Kevin Hunsanger, who runs the store’s used books operations — bought the store from Savoy in an owner-financed buyout, which the three earned mostly in sweat equity. The buyout finished in 2008, but the three took over running the store on a day-to-day basis in 2000, said Mulvihill. Green Apple Books also has a second store, Green Apple Books on the Park, which celebrates its third anniversary this year.
“We hear from people who tell us they’ve grown up with the store; we recently met a lady who used to live in the building back in the late 1920s or ’30s, before it was a bookstore,” Mulvihill said. “And we often hear from people, whether it’s our anniversary or not, who can’t believe or are so grateful we’re still here. People who grew up in San Francisco and moved away for 20 years will come back and go, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe you guys are still here.’”
In honor of the anniversary celebration, Green Apple has commissioned local artists 3 Fish Studios to create a 50th anniversary logo for publicity use and to print on T-shirts, tote bags, and mugs. The company based the design on the store’s unofficial mascot, Mergatroid, a wooden statue depicting a traditional Italian punchinello (which resembles a clown-like gnome), carved for the store back in 1978. Since then, Mergatroid has stood on the sidewalk in front of the building with an apple in one hand and a book in the other; some people like to rub his belly for good luck, Mulvihill said.
The flagship store will also host a party weekend on Saturday, September 9, and Sunday, September 10, which will feature free coffee and treats provided by a local bakery, free beer from a local brewery, a 10 percent discount off everything in the store, a sale on $50 gift cards for $30, entertainment including an accordion player, and a prize wheel featuring coupons and products from nearby merchants.
Green Apple is also giving back to the community’s students in honor of its 50th, with a program called “Give a Kid Some Credit.” When Green Apple turned 40, the store donated $10 gift certificates to every third-grade public school student in San Francisco, a total of 3,900 children; the store plans to reprise the program this year, Mulvihill said.
“We’re grateful for the support of hundreds of thousands of readers over the years,” hel said. “We average 450 transactions a day at the main store, which comes to 165,000 a year. We’re only still here because people keep coming in and buying books. When people ask us how we’ve lasted so long, I tell them it’s because of you: you came in and bought something. If you didn’t and 10 other people didn’t, we’d be in trouble.”
“We as a store can take pride in all our efforts and improvements and changes over the years,” he added, “but it is really thanks to the people of San Francisco and the greater Bay Area who come in and buy books. It’s pretty simple. So we’re really grateful.”