by David Mendez

Ridgecrest Books was humming on Saturday, as bookshops around Puget Sound celebrated Seattle Independent Bookstore Day. New customers and regulars alike strolled in to check out the shop and add stamps to their “passports” — checklists of participating shops, redeemable for prizes — while the staff passed out free stickers to anyone who bought a healthy stack of books or other goodies. Eyes lit up as people stepped through the doors, taking in the hundreds of books lining wooden shelves and tables. Sharp ears could hear people saying “I’ve never been here before,” or “I didn’t know this was here,” like they’re at the end of a treasure hunt.

While they were just finding out about the shop, Ridgecrest Books has been building up its name in Shoreline and around Seattle, holding author events, vending at Seattle Arts and Lectures events and running school book sales around town. But at the heart of it is serving their neighbors.

“It has been really special to be a part of this neighborhood,” co-owner Kevin Roberts told The Osprey. “There’s pride. We’re proud to be here, and there’s the pride of the neighbors having a shop — like, hey, there are cool things happening here. This community deserves cool things too.”

Ridgecrest Books opened for business in March 2024 as a joint project of Kevin Roberts and Becky Merilatt, a pair of booksellers that began working together at Ballard’s Secret Garden Books. They were joined by fellow Secret Garden alumna Mary Elliott, their first employee.

The pair were once in talks to buy Secret Garden, though when that fell through, Merilatt sought to move on quickly. She’s lived in the Ridgecrest neighborhood with her husband and kids for about four years. After research found that opening up in Shoreline would fill a void, they jumped on the storefront blocks away from her home.

“I think it all ended up being for the best, because there have been so many things about being in my own community where I’m living, where I’m raising my kids,” Merilatt said. “It’s just been so much more rewarding than I think it could have been otherwise.”

Merilatt’s been selling books for about 20 years, beginning with a work-study gig in college at Secret Garden. Her love affair with reading began in earnest during high school, leading to a degree in English Literature and a wide-ranging taste in books.

“I tend to read the weird stuff,” she said — stories that most people haven’t heard of or wouldn’t have sought out, but that Merilatt can sell on her enthusiasm alone. “If I say, this is the weirdest book I’ve ever read, this book is all about cannibalism, it’ll make you rethink all of your morals, people will say ‘oh, OK,’ and they’ll actually take it, which I love!” Merilatt said.

Which is where Kevin Roberts comes in. He’s the resident nonfiction and horror specialist — if something in the shop has got a dark edge to it, it’s probably gone through his hands. (“I used to read a lot of horror…and that was between very depressing nonfiction and depressing fiction,” Kevin said, laughing. “Just bummers all around.”) He leads the shop’s “Slow News Day Book Club,” which this year he pitches as “read with good people so that you feel ready to go do good.”

Meanwhile, Mary Elliott helms the shop’s used book program while keeping her ears to the ground for great general fiction — books that are heartwarming, funny and character studies are hallmarks of her picks — and the best of the best-sellers. “Mary has, like, acolytes now,” Merilatt said. “She has people who are like, ‘what has Mary been reading, because I need the next book she’s been reading!’”

They all cover different areas of the store, and all have an eye for what their community of readers are searching for. There’s an appetite for nostalgia — a new edition of “The Princess Bride” popped off around the holidays, while a golden-era mystery from “Winnie the Pooh” creator A.A. Milne has been flying off the table — but Merilatt is struck by how open-minded her customers have been.

“One of the things I appreciate about a lot of our readers is that they walk in saying ‘this is what I have read, but I want to try something new,” Merilatt said.

“We like to talk to a person, find out what that person reads and what they like and then match — or maybe push their limits a little,” Elliott said. “It's almost like friendships, you know. You want the book to be something that they're looking forward to spending time with.”

The first time someone walks into Ridgecrest Books, they may be struck by the store’s layout. Aside from the children’s section, no books are shelved below the average book buyer’s waist. Instead, shelves start about hip-high, and a majority of the new and featured books lay on tables and shelves, covers facing up, a change that makes all the sense in the world once you think about it.

“I’ve noticed that nothing sells below the knees,” Merilatt said. And, since customers do, indeed, judge books by their covers, giving books “face out time” makes them more likely to sell. 

Authors have come to enjoy their time at the shop as well. Elaine U. Cho is a Seattle local who also has a history as a bookseller. When the Seattle Times profiled Ridgecrest in its first year, Merilatt shouted out Cho’s debut novel “Ocean’s Godori,” a space opera centered on its characters’ relationships.

“It was really, really wonderful to hear that someone had read it and enjoyed it, and that someone was a bookseller, someone who reads for a living,” Cho told The Osprey.

Cho popped into Ridgecrest soon after, where she spotted a shelf talker — a usually hand-written staff recommendation — written by Merilatt, praising her book. After some nervous faltering, she went back in to ask if she could sign a few copies. The staff happily accepted her offer.

Ridgecrest later brought Cho back for an event promoting her second novel, “Teo’s Durumi,” and the praise for her books is still effusive. Building a relationship with booksellers is grounding for an author, Cho said.

“It’s about the joy of reading, about the different kinds of things you’re figuring out or trying to say through the books,” Cho said. “Booksellers are the doorways, the portals for the readers and for the writers.”

Highland Terrace Elementary School’s librarian was ready for a change. 

Every year, the elementary school’s book fair coincides with the school’s longstanding, locally-beloved PTA-run pancake breakfast, still running strong after more than 65 years of feeding friends and neighbors.

But for 2026, Joy Burke decided that the book fair’s long-standing vendor, Scholastic, was no longer the best fit for the school’s students.

“It was great, but there were a lot of gaps, the big ones being that the Scholastic book fairs bring in a lot of non-book items, and the selection. You never know what you’re going to get; it comes in a truck, and it’s a mystery truck,” Burke told The Osprey.

Scholastic’s book fairs are famed for having scores of books — and scores of toys, knick-knacks and tchotchkes that often come packed in with those books.

“In past years, it was more around, oh, we got this keychain, or this pencil, or this poster,” Highland Terrace Principal Lara Drew said of students describing their hauls.

So in 2025, Burke invited Roberts to check out the school’s pancake breakfast, and the size of its book fair — the largest that Burke has worked with in her school librarian career, and one she said was classified as an “XL” book fair by Scholastic, receiving more than a dozen crates of books and goods for each event.

The sale lasts for a few days during the school days themselves, but the biggest sales come on the day of the pancake breakfast, which draws in current students and families, alumni, prospective families, grandparents, neighbors and any passers-by who might be hooked by the scent of pancakes on the air.

“This one was big. It’s this very well-established thing that they’ve been doing in the community for years and years and years,” Roberts said. “And then for us to take it on, it was an honor, but a lot of pressure too…and then, yeah, it went great.”

The book sale drew about $15,000 in sales — 20% of which went directly back to the school library, for use in updating the library’s collection and getting books to supplement lessons in classrooms across the school.

Working with Ridgecrest came with a range of benefits and flexibilities that Scholastic couldn’t match. The range of books available was much wider, running the gamut from kindergarten-aged books to those targeted at adults, including options for former Highland Terrace kids who were now in middle school. For families on a budget, Ridgecrest collected boxes and boxes of donated and gently-used books to help set up a $2 and under table. And they were able to bring in books from a variety of publishers, not just Scholastic and its brands — or authors.

Seattle-based author and illustrator Ben Clanton is best known for his Narwhal and Jelly series, starring a happy-go-lucky narwhal and his anxious jellyfish friend. Clanton has known Roberts and Merilatt dating back to their days working at Secret Garden Books, which was his local bookshop.

“It can’t be stated enough…if a bookseller truly believes in a book, the difference that it can make for connecting that book with a reader or with a family,” Clanton said. When Ridgecrest opened up, they maintained their relationship with Clanton and his team, working with him on a handful of events and signings.

For the Highland Terrace fair, they reached out to Clanton, getting him to sign a “mountain of books” — which were centrally and prominently located during the sale. Clanton then held court at an assembly at the school coinciding with the fair.

“It was just like, kids saying ‘I saw him, I met him, I know him!’ at the assembly. It was just really special,” Burke said.

“It was fun to be in the main foyer and seeing families come in, and that excitement in the kids, then seeing them leave and they were sharing more about the books,” Drew said. “There was just a real difference.”

The relationship has continued beyond the book fair, as the school has set up a student book club partnership with Ridgecrest. Twenty percent of each book club selection goes back to the Highland Terrace library, and each book is stocked and ready for sale at Ridgecrest. And the relationship between bookstore and school library has given Burke a chance to use book fair funds on texts that teachers are asking for — like books on immigration that are accessible for second grade readers.

Building that relationship with kids and their families has been gratifying for Roberts, himself a recent parent of two young kids — so recent that he interrupted family leave for his second baby to help at the Highland Terrace fair.

“When we go into a school, it’s really cool because a lot of the time you’ll see kids that are like, ‘oh, that’s my bookstore!’”  he said. “Because it’s kind of a small community within a larger city, within a larger metropolitan area where there’s this sense of — that’s mine, that’s my shop.”

At its heart, Ridgecrest Books is founded on a deep appreciation for the power of literature.

“It’s about boundless enthusiasm for literature and sharing that,” said Susan Scott, an artist and former bookstore manager with past professional ties to Ridgecrest’s owners and staff. 

“They’re all insatiable readers, and once they’ve read something, they are ready to share it around with their customers and friends…I think that’s what literature, for me, is all about: sharing. And that’s what they’re doing.”

That fits the mission of their landlord, Megan Kogut, owner of Ridgecrest Public House and Drumlin Cafe and Bar.

“The point of all this is giving people a place to go that’s clean and intentional,” Kogut told The Osprey. Drumlin has become a go-to community space, becoming a venue for music, community conversations and neighborhood meetups alike. Getting a bookstore, she said, is like “winning the lottery” to her. 

There’s a synergy there; readers can (and do) buy books in the pub and swing by the cafe to read with a cup of coffee, and the store has hosted a few author events in the pub over the years.

“It’s all contributing to a neighborhood center that people can call their own,” Kogut said.

Ridgecrest Books celebrated its second anniversary in March, though they opted against a party. Merilatt dismissed the idea, not wanting to make a big deal of it, but the occasion was meaningful to one of the shop’s neighbors and regulars.

“They’ve made it past the two year mark, so they’re going to succeed,” said Jamie Lutton, a shop regular whom Ridgecrest has featured a handful of times on their Instagram feed.

“They’re tuned into what the neighborhood wants. They’re doing readings from authors, they have a good buying policy on their used books — they’re very selective about their used books,” Lutton said, and she would know. For nearly 40 years Lutton has run Seattle’s Twice Sold Tales, an institution in Seattle’s literary community. “I go in there and I find used books that I want, which is tough to do.”

“It feels like a lot of people who are walking in the door are looking for the hidden gem, and that’s what we do,” she told The Osprey.

“I would be happy to be known for that. I think it would be pretty cool,” she said, smiling. “Known for being a purveyor of fine rare gems.”