A New Home for Petunia's Place

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Fresno children's bookstore Petunia's Place will celebrate its grand reopening on August 21 in the store's new location on North Palm Avenue. “We love the new location,” said co-owner Jean Fennacy.

The new location, the fifth in the store's history, is just a mile from the previous one, but “it's a much more wide-open area,” Fennacy said, “about the same square footage, but a different shape.” The new floorplan gives Petunia's Place additional space for toys and games, along with a separate young adult section.

Fennacy and Debbie Manning, the store's other co-owner, oversaw the process of moving the store, which included transporting more than 270 boxes filled with books. “It took us a week and a half to get all those books reshelved,” Fennacy said.

The move was planned months in advance, which gave Fennacy and Manning plenty of time to update Petunia's Place customers about the new location. “We've been letting people know for at least two months,” Fennacy said, talking to customers in the store, asking teachers to distribute information to their students, and using the local public radio station to get the word out.

The reopening celebration will include appearances by performer Mr. Mustache and folk singer Oklin Bloodworth. “We'll be doing some other activities with the kids,” said Fennacy.

Fennacy and Manning have owned the store for more than 20 years, but their connection to it goes back even further. “Beverly Woods, who started the store, was my third-grade teacher,” Fennacy said. And, she said, Jean Pereira, the store's other co-founder, still works at Petunia's Place one day a week, doing some of the buying and serving as the “store grandmother.”