after-words bookstore — Local services in Chicago

If I could rate this place as a zero star I would. My husband and I went in there about 10 minutes ago. The first thing we noticed was a sign that said you have to check in with the front desk before you can even browse. There was a woman at the front desk who was speaking to a man in front of us. She made him use hand sanitizer before he could go in. While my husband were waiting, second in line, I looked around the store and saw a beautiful David Bowie book I knew our daughter would be interested in. The women at the front desk looked at us and asked us what we wanted. I mean what would we want, it was a bookstore. I told her we wanted to give her a bookmark, we are novelists and we were interested in seeing if this bookstore would sell our books. She took the bookmark. She set it beside her, said okay and asked the people behind us to step forward. She put them through the process of sanitizing their hands and asking what they were looking for, are folks not even allowed to browse? She left us just standing there. Then a third person came in and she started to talk to them, ignoring us still. I looked at her, ignoring us, and she glanced over at me and said, "I don't have time to look at this right now, I am too busy." (She had three customers come in when we were there. She wouldn't have been busy if she didn't have to grill them like a sergeant and get them all to use hand sanitizer..) So I told her that I was going to ask her about a book but I guess she is too busy, so we left the store. This is the worst store, and the rudest person I've seen in my life. I will say, I sure hope she doesn't order any of our books to put into her store. We don't want our books sold there. And I sure don't want our fans going into that store to purchase our books. Take this store off your...

I had a brief visit to Chicago and for part of my trip, I wanted to visit a bookstore. I did a search and After-Words popped up as an option and after comparing with a few options (Chicago has lots of options), I decided to visit them while in town.

It's a cute store--looks small, but holds a lot--it has a lower level that offers a wide selection for perusing to your heart's content. The bookstore is also linked with a few online bookseller links, where you could preview what books they have available and how much they are--which is how I settled on this store. It had a wide variety of crafting books I had been in search for; and being that I could go in person, I could look at the books before buying.

I lost myself for a couple hours in the store, wishing I had more money to spend and room to fly everything I wanted back with me. The staff was very hospitable and helpful--and I vowed to recommend them to everyone who would find themselves in Chicago.

I also inadvertently left my employee ID in their store (how, I cannot say, I rarely take it out of my purse anyway) and they contacted me immediately so I could get it back (though by then I had returned to my home of origin--a state away) and then mailed it to me. (See? Hospitable and helpful!)

Books are very reasonably priced and there was a big variety to choose from....

I brought my son here - he is in a wheelchair and has a traumatic brain injury. Clerk stopped us at the door to remind us to use hand sanitizer and give us a long winded spiel, but never mentioned that all the adult books are downstairs. We discovered this on our own after we circled the store. Then she ignored us as we waited to ask about an elevator. When she couldn’t pretend to do something else anymore, she finally revealed there is no elevator. Period. No offer of accommodation or alternate way to experience the store. I emailed the contact given on their website twice - no response.

At minimum the store needs to remove the wheelchair icon from their listing. We would not have made the trip without that indicator. At worst, they know they are violating ADA and don’t care. I ask all future visitors to let the store know that accessibility is important and disabled customers deserve respect.

I would also say that this experience is an outlier for us in Chicago. 99.9% of our interactions with businesses, staff and people in the city has been positive throughout our 2 month visit, including at many small businesses in historic buildings. Chicagoans are on the whole, wonderful, helpful and compassionate! They just don’t happen to work at...