Park Books Opening New Location In Annapolis This April

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — There’s a new store joining the Annapolis book community in just a few short weeks.

Park Books is expanding to its third location on April 30 with a new spot in Maryland Hall, located at 01 Chase St., Annapolis. Maryland Hall is a massive space in Annapolis dedicated to sharing arts and culture, and offers shops, classes, theatre programs, and more in its mission to promote art education.

Park Books at Maryland Hall is doubly exciting because this is the first time the bookstore will also be able to host a cafe. Owner Melody Wukitch said that project is part of reopening the old cafe that was popular in Maryland Hall years ago — Wukitch has worked extensively with Maryland Hall putting on author and pop-up events and said the team asked her if she’d be interested in reopening the cafe along with a bookstore.

“It felt like a meant-to-be kind of thing,” Wukitch said, adding that she and her team are excited to bring this popular cafe back to life.

Wukitch founded Park Books & LitColab in Severna Park five years ago. She later expanded to Sykesville with Park Books on Main, and said it was always part of her dream for the store to be able to include a cafe. She’s also working on adding a cafe to her store in Severna Park, but it’s been a much slower process. The space for Park Books Collective Cafe at Maryland Hall came ready-made with the right equipment and infrastructure for her to be able to make the vision a reality as soon as this summer.

“From the beginning, we’ve leaned into the community, and the community has leaned into us,” Wukitch said. And “coffee and books” has always been part of what the community wants.

“I want to be able to give the community what they ask for,” Wukutsch said. “It’s about giving people a place to come together over books, to have a book club, play mah jong. Our book clubs are bursting at the seams. People want to come together, talk about books, and do ‘analog things.’”

A founding part of Parks Books is LitColab. Wukitch is a former reading specialist and educator and wanted the store to also be a learning lab where teachers can help kids with literacy. She says LitColab has helped solidify the store’s role in the community in Severna Park and establish it as a true “third space.”

She also says part of what makes Park Books different from other stores is that they deal exclusively in new books and are a New York Times Reporting store; this means they can get the newest titles in bulk, and can serve as a stop on book tours for authors promoting new releases. This way, she’s been able to bring in authors that may have otherwise skipped the area.

“Anything Barnes & Noble can do, we can do,” Wukitch said. “But we do it with a community feel.”

Wukitch is planning to officially open the doors to Park Books in Annapolis on April 30. The hours will be announced as soon as possible, but she plans to be open six days a week. Hours may be adjusted to accommodate early coffee drinkers once the cafe opens, most likely in June. Residents can follow Park Books on Facebook and Instagram or check out their website for the latest updates.

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