The Mad Raven

The Mad Raven is Sparta’s only bookstore.  Walking inside the cute little shop that sits just outside of the town’s historic district on Bockman Way is an experience like no other in the city.

With three rooms full of books, tables, chairs, and couches, The Mad Raven, which opened in 2016, is everything you would expect a used bookstore to be. It is everything Hollywood has portrayed in every movie. From cozy corners to floor-to-ceiling shelves, to staff that is on a first-name basis with almost everyone who walks through the door, The Mad Raven has the perfect vibe as it sits tucked into the end building on a row, and regular patrons enter through a back door and meander their way through the shelves and furniture.

“It’s amazing how many people still come in thinking we are just a bookstore,” Amanda Billings, who took over the business in 2019, said. “We are so much more!”

Billings is talking about the fresh coffee, specialty drinks, sandwiches, and daily specials that she and her daughter, Lacy, serve up every Tuesday through Friday, from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.

The Mad Raven began serving coffees, frappes, Italian sodas, flavored lemonades, and teas, along with a simple menu of sandwiches and desserts, when it first opened. When Billings took over the shop, she continued to serve the same delicious menu items, but, when COVID forced the entire world to hit the brakes and make changes, she had to get creative or risk losing her business.

“COVID hit just six months after I took over,” she explained. “It hasn’t always been easy even before that, with days when I would only have a handful of customers come in to browse through books.”

But Billings got creative and started using Facebook to advertise daily specials and offered curbside pickup due to the inability of customers to sit inside businesses and eat food during the first few months of the pandemic.

“Our little business took off,” she said.

Now Billings continues to advertise daily specials each evening on Facebook. With a limited number of servings available, ensuring that she is able to both serve each customer and at the same time has no waste at the end of the day, the daily special sells out practically every day. And, along with the daily lunch specials, Billings has a daily drink special – usually a flavored lemonade or frappe.

“We are a two-person, mother/daughter team,” Billings said, “so we can usually handle about 40 – 50 daily specials. We still have customers who are here ordering off the regular menu, getting drinks, purchasing books, and we have to be sure that we have time for them, too!”

Billings’ creativity and willingness to adjust has created a new source of customers who have quickly become “regulars” and friends. And while there are plenty of people who stop in for lunch or get orders to go, there are still those who come and stay a while and enjoy the atmosphere of Sparta’s only bookstore, grabbing books off the shelves, browsing through titles, looking for that perfect story to entertain them for a spell, and taking advantage of the store’s trade policy by exchanging old books for store credit so that when they find their next reading obsession they can take it home.

“We are so thankful and blessed to be a part of Sparta’s small business community,” Billings said, and then added a note to her patrons. “We wouldn’t be here without each and every one of you. Thank ya’ll so much for continuing to support our small business.”