Atomic Books — Local services in Baltimore

I really wanted to support a local bookstore and not go to a major chain or Amazon. Unfortunately, this store won't be the one getting my business. Not only are customers not allowed to drink a covered coffee and are forced to leave it at the front register, but they also don't have a bathroom for customers to use. Those blanket policies with no room for individual discretion are par for city life in the US, which is a shame. So I have to run out of your store and not buy anything to SUPPORT YOU because duty calls? Your loss, really.

The other sincere issue with my experience was the attitude of the woman who relayed these policies to me. Utterly unfriendly and her tone suggested I was a complete moron for even daring to bring a coffee into the store or asking about a bathroom. "There's a sign on the front that says there's no bathroom." Oh, okay. But maybe USE YOUR DISCRETION to allow customers who are clearly not going to ruin your bathroom? Or maybe employees actually do defecate in a bucket all day and this store legitimately has no bathroom? I doubt it, but that's possible. Could have been why she was so damn mean and salty, perhaps? Or maybe it was because I was the only customer in the store, the store is going under, and she's pissed that she'll be jobless soon? News flash - if you provide good customer service rather than JUST products, people will come back. I can get your books ANYWHERE. That's not why I come to YOU. What you provide that's special is yourself, not your products. Some business owners don't understand that, and then they wonder why no one comes back. It's truly not about your product, especially when they're generic products like mass produced books. It's about the person and ethos behind the product. Wish you understood that.

Either way, great job driving a customer away. I won't come back, nor will I encourage others in my wide network to go, as I normally would for a business that treats their customers well. There's more than one reason Amazon is taking over the world, and shop employees/owners like this are definitely...

A legendary classic, what more can be said...?? MASSIVE stock of practically all kinds of comics and graphic novels, mostly current or recent printings new, but they do still have some back issues I haven't been through in a bit. Really just about everything: most mainstream and superhero stuff, tons of weirdo alternatives and experimentals, independent zines and such, queer stuff, decent manga section, as well as some hentai even it looked like...o

Also regular books as well, again mostly current or recent printings new, but plenty of new stuff and classic goodies as well, large eclectic fiction section, and a very interesting variety of non-fiction topics from radical politics and history to pop-culture studies, conspiracy theories to cookbooks, queer and social topics to radical self-help to a large art book section... eclectic magazines, a WIDE variety of underground zines and such, as well as a variable smattering of random quirky to kitschy to amusing small novelty items and knick-knacks, all with a legit old school weird Baltimore vibe: a mainstay for sure!

Now with a small Daniel Clowes themed bar in the back that's VERY rad!!!!!D (check for bar hours i think might vary) they do several book clubs and other events fairly regularly, and also there's an equally quite rad new and used record store right next door ("Celebrated Summer"; also check their hours too, tho!) particularly specializing in legit punk and metal, but with...

Came here and spent $20 but didn’t have much time, came back the next day and looked around for about an hour, bought a $5 drink, and was planning to come back at the end of my day in Hampden since I didn’t want to carry the books around while shopping. However, one of the employees loudly publicly shamed me for “reading all their books” and asked me if I was planning to buy anything on my way out, while I was holding the $5 drink I bought. I read exactly 10 pages of one graphic novel. It wasn’t just me being sensitive - another patron left when I did and said the employee was really rude to me, so they felt like they had to leave too. What do they gain from publicly embarrassing someone who has bought multiple things from their business for flipping through 10...