For bookworms, having a book is part of your everyday essential belongings. Some book characters become the readers’ imaginary friends. Some people will go on a book date, where they’re alone as if on a date. Kabnshy bookstore cafe is one of the best places to escape to for those whose hearts belong to books.
Kabnshy bookstore cafe is a reading hub that provides readers with the availability of choosing a novel from the many options on its shelves. One can enjoy reading along with a cup of coffee while listening to the Oud player performing classical music live in the background.
(Photo from Facebook)
Located in Heliopolis, Kabnshy is a unique way for one to enjoy the company of a book.
“We’ve always loved reading since we were children,” Ahmed Moustafa, one of the owners, said. “But we never found a place that would provide us with novels and a quiet atmosphere to enjoy reading.”
Whenever Moustafa or any of his friends went somewhere to read, they would always be irritated by the loud music, smoke from the shisha, or peoples’ loud voices. On the other hand, in any quiet bookstore, they would be required to buy one of the books to read it. “This is where we got the idea, a combination of the quiet space and to be able to provide free books for whoever is interested. We also included the idea to serve drinks while listening to music.”
The three owners are still students in the faculty of commerce at Ain Shams University. They spent three years collecting the money they would start their project with. “I put the money I was saving up for my whole life into this bookstore. One of my partners sold the apartment he kept for marriage to invest,” Moustafa said.
They put everything they ever owned at risk for the sake of the project, hoping that people would enjoy it. “We dreamed that once we open the store, we would profit from it and make up for everything we sacrificed to establish it.”
But winds do not below as the vessels wish; at first people did not accept the idea of having a cafe without shisha or loud music. “We opened for two months without any income,” Moustafa said. “No one came to sit and those who found out there was no shihsa or games always left. We could not afford the bills so we had two options: we either turn the place into a normal coffee shop or close it. We decided to close it.”
(Photo from Facebook)
People started being negative to the young founders, calling them irrational and failures. “Even those who supported the idea at the beginning blamed us for not finding a way to revive it when they saw the pace falling apart,” Moustafa said. “Those who did not blame us for the failure just tried to convince us that society was not ready for the idea.”
Just when Moustafa and his friends were about to sell the place, a person was passing by when they overheard their story and wrote a Facebook post about. The post went viral, and over 64,000 users shared it with encouragement.
“We started receiving phone calls from people, asking us not to close, since they have been looking for a place like us but did not know we existed,” Moustafa said. “We were only one day away from our final closing when everything changed.”
Two days after the post went viral, people started coming to our cafe. “We could not afford a staff just then, so I was standing at the kitchen making the orders myself, while my partners would serve.”
The young owners succeeded in creating their dream, not only a bookstore cafe but a place to experience books and music.
