The front door to Bibliobar is wide open, showing off a white-walled interior jam-packed with books. “There’s a bookstore?” shout dozens of passersby on 15th Street in historic downtown Plano, and the answer is yes. It’s called Bibliobar; children’s books are in the center, flanked by fiction on the right and nonfiction on the left.
For owner Chelsea Tresp, the bookstore game isn’t new, but having her own storefront is. Her first job was at Barnes & Noble, where she worked for seven years between Texas and New York. She landed a job at Harper Collins, where she moved up the ranks for four years and experienced the publishing landscape firsthand.
Bibliobar began as an online and pop-up bookshop, appearing at coffee shops and breweries since 2017. In 2023, she opened the Plano Shopping Co-Op in downtown Plano with her sister-in-law, selling her books on the second floor while her sister sold vintage clothes on the first…