Felice Dubin receives proclamation from the City

Felice Dubin, owner of The Bookstore in the Grove, received a proclamation from the City of Miami Thursday, thanking her for 10 years of The Bookstore in the Grove.

Felice started The Bookstore with Sandy Francis, as a labor of love for the Grove. When Borders closed, we were left without a bookstore, Felice and Sandy opened The Bookstore in the Grove on Virginia and Grand in 2007 so that the village would have a place to buy books, hang out, get coffee, have meetings and so on.

It's been 10 wonderful years! 

Above from left, our District 2 Commissioner Ken Russell, Felice, Mayor Tomas Reglado and Commissioner Frank Carollo.

Before I knew Felice, she knew me. When the Grapevine was new, and the Bookstore was new, I wrote something about their sandwiches being overpriced. As I walked by one day after that, she stopped me in the street, she didn't even introduce herself or say hi, she just said, "Oh, by the way, I read what you said and I wanted you to know I lowered the price on our sandwiches." Loved that. It made me smile and I always liked her from that day on.

We were on a number of committees together and she is the one who got me involved on so many committees dragging and screaming. I didn't plan on it. I would just show up at meetings to cover the news for the Grapevine and she would call out various jobs to the people in the audience from the front table or dais like, "Tom, you are in charge of such and such," And I would say, "No, I'm just here covering the news!" But before you knew it, I was on the July 4th committee, the Bed Race committee, the Coconut Hunt committee, the Merchants Group, etc. And I loved every minute of it.

Felice was on a lot of committees and for awhile, she was a member of the Coconut Grove Village Council. She's done a lot of good for the Grove from behind the scenes, too.

I am sure we are all going to miss The Bookstore. It's been such a big part of the life of Coconut Grove. I use to say that The Bookstore and the Windisch-Hunt Gallery were the center of town. We managed without the gallery, guess we'll have to see what it's like to manage without The Bookstore. 

The Bookstore at its Virginia Street location.