McKay Used Books — Attraction in Manassas

I was there last night (this Thursday 1/30/25) it was over an hour to close and asked to locate a particular book in the store. The cashier told me where it might be, and then I asked her where their restroom was. She pointed me to the right direction as I was approaching it I saw the "mall cop" whoever they have that was suppose to be "watching" the store so no one steals on her phone holding it up walking around on the out shirts of the store and looking down at it...She had a ear pod in. I saw her go into the the bathroom cubby area as if she was hiding...then I realized she ducked and they had a sign saying the restroom was closed...I waved to get her attention and asked her if it was open. She just pointed at the sign and said, "You see what it says"....she was VERY RUDE and def not watching the sales floor or doing her job. She was somewhere else paying attention to her phone and not her job. Thank god I didn't have to go go right away but as I was in the aisle trying to find this book I saw another associate with a cart (only 2 books on it) walking by and I asked if he could help me. He was "nice" but did not even try. Told me the obvious and walked away. At this point, I was extremely frustrated...another customer came into the aisle and was also having difficulty trying to find another book in the same aisle. I tried to help her, she tried to help me. She was also annoyed with the behavior of the employees in the store. I said how do they have the restroom closed with this many people (at least 12 to 15 people inside the store) she said it's been like this for awhile that the restroom is not available to the public every time she comes here and she comes here often with her family. I said when I came into the store I noticed elderly people here too and how not fair that is for everyone. We talked and parted ways. I went further down the aisle and realized there was an odor coming from somewhere. As if someone went #2....It was disgusting. The other customer found me to let me know about my book on a website I might want to buy it from and I asked her do you smell that?? She said yes. I said wow this is not right... McKay get your act together. I am not sure what has changed, but you need to be better with your customers, and for God sakes have your restroom available for your shoppers. I bet that night someone left them a present somewhere in...

Such a fun used bookstore, especially if you have nice quality books you would like to trade for store credit! We trade in my decently new YA and adult novels and get to pick out a bunch of children’s books basically for free! It is a little hard to navigate sometimes, though they now have a computer where you can look up the title of the book you’re trying to find and they will tell you where it would be if they had it. I find they often don’t have really popular books – they go like hotcakes – but I’ve gotten lucky many times. Also, if you still use DVDs like we do, this is a treasure trove.

It is worth noting that though this is exactly like the used bookstore chain “McKay’s” which started in Chattanooga, TN, this is a different bookstore. You will not be able to use credit from those other stores at this place; it’s a standalone store, technically called “Richard McKay’s Used Books”…unabashed copycat? Probably. But lots of great deals to be had if you can find what you’re looking for.

10/8/24 Update: I wanted to add that, though we’ve been going to this bookstore for years, recently it has been put under new management and since then the prices have gone up and the trade-in value has gone down. I dropped off 15 like new books by Disney Hyperion ($15-$30 brand new, most hard cover) and they gave me $38 trade in value for them. I also discovered that, on some of the books and DVDs I bought, under the price sticker was an older price sticker that was two dollars cheaper. I’m used to them re-stickering things to mark them down, but not up. I am not going to downgrade my rating – I still enjoy shopping here — but it no longer resides in my mind as a place to get bargain books — I find, generally, ThriftBooks is cheaper. And I think I would rather put my books in a free library so someone else can have them for free, then to get pittance for them at McKays and then have someone have to pay a markup...

Walked in to Mkay for the second time ever in my life, was casually going about my business browsing books and taking scanning certain book titles. Mind you this I did not know the policy that "scanning was only allowed at 3" at all. When an employee came and yelled at me about what I was doing. I politely told her I did not know the polices that they had in place and was sorry. I waited in one of the rows infront of the store. When she went into the employee section and handed me a piece of paper and told me to see the policies once again in a rude and unprofessional manner. Once again I did not know about these policies that were in place and apologized to her. But to no avail she screamed and yelled at me stating that I was a horrible person because I intended to resell the books. And that I should be ashamed of myself. Which was frankly not nice at all considering she screamed this infront of the check outline infront of a vast amount of people. There was no warnings or anything just a straight "GET OUT" Overall this was a horrible experience and that employee should be ashamed of herself yelling at a college student trying to make side money to fund his college education. I understand store policy but to scream and yell at a customer is unprofessional and to then to tell them that they are a horrible person...