The Couth Buzzard bookstore on Greenwood Avenue is collecting donations for local food banks and offering pay-what-you-can aid to customers at its cafe. (David Mendez/The Osprey)
by David Mendez
The Couth Buzzard bookshop — a staple of Greenwood Avenue for more than 30 years — has made its cafe “pay what you can” until federal food benefits are fully reinstated. The bookshop’s owners also plan to run a food drive benefitting local food banks at least as long as SNAP benefits are unpaid…and potentially even longer.
“We know, personally and through the shop, a lot of folks who are really feeling the squeeze and danger of [food insecurity],” said Tallis Moore, half of a husband and wife duo that now owns the bookshop. “We’ve always had a policy of ‘pay what you can’ for tea and coffee — we’ve got a lot of folks coming through to events and hang out who don’t have a lot to spend.”
But now, Tallis and Hilary Moore have decided to swap the whole cafe to a “pay what you can” model.
“All food and baked goods, and now this food drive — this was a bit more ground-up from our staff,” Moore said, crediting a handful of Couth Buzzard workers — Ash Winter, Olivia Rosane, Ariel Mathews and Armin Panjvani — for leading that effort. “[They] took the charge on putting that together, reaching out to food banks to see who is really hurting and in need of things.”
Now, the corner of the cafe’s countertop is the prominent home to a basket soliciting nonperishable food donations. That, Moore said, has been a hit among folks in the community. People have even come to the shop on Tuesdays, when it’s typically closed, to bring in pantry staples.
The “pay as you can” model has already been helping out folks who have come on hard times, Moore said, and it’s helped bring back folks who haven’t been able to afford a trip to their local hangout. It’s helped protect a sense of community at the shop that Tallis Moore often simply calls “The Couth.”
“This is one of the most rewarding things about all of this for Hilary and I. We’ve been seeing folks gather at the counter and meet each other and become close friends without having another angle to meet each other,” Moore said. “This is a unique opportunity and, in general, to be sitting here at the counter you have to spend money. But it’s important to give people a bit of slack.”
One afternoon a woman in a coat and surgical mask over her face came into the shop, bearing two plastic bags stuffed with food. She asked if it was OK to set them on the counter by the basket, and after Moore nodded, she handed him an envelope that she said was also for the drive. As he thanked her, she returned her gratitude for what the store was doing.
“I just wanted to do something, anything. I may not be a person who has a ton of spare money, but I have enough that I can share what I have, and the Buzzard is a really important place to me,” she said by phone days later.
The woman shared her name with The Osprey, but asked that her name not be published — she didn’t want credit for donating things for a good cause. But she’s been a regular at the Couth Buzzard dating back decades, remembering when it was further south on Greenwood, near Ken’s Market. Over the years, the Couth Buzzard has been a safe haven for her, once giving her trade credit in exchange for shelving books — something she would have done for free, just because it grounded her. But that spirit of community, offered years ago, made her a supporter for life.
“The Buzzard has been a beacon of hope and community in this neighborhood, and when I heard that they were spearheading something, I was so proud of them for doing what they did, and I was determined to be a part of it,” the donor said.
The Moores, who took over The Couth Buzzard in 2024, don’t have traditional bookstore backgrounds. But once upon a time, both worked for local homelessness organizations, building programs and managing shelters.
“Homeless work ended up having a lot of connection in terms of the things that we care about and being community focused, and knowing how to balance the things you need to balance,” Tallis said, “when you’re running an organization that’s so dependent on its community and needs to care for them.”
The Moores take their roles in the community seriously and happily. Tallis Moore was reminded about the neighborhoods that Jane Jacobs argued for in her book on urbanism, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities.”
“It’s the role that people play in their communities, how neighborhoods get a lot of their character from how people treat each other on a day to day basis,” Moore said. “That’s the unique thing about living in a city and one thing I’ve been enjoying about my role at The Couth Buzzard.”