Would You Like Some Sausage With Your Novel?

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From The New York Times:

At five minutes after seven on a Saturday morning, the bookstore in this idyllic town was not yet officially open — that happens at 7:30 a.m. — but Susanne Frühauf had already rung up the first three customers of the day. At a shelf in the corner, behind a rack of discount paperbacks, her husband Wolfgang was working as quickly as he could.

“They’re like moths,” said Mr. Frühauf, genially, of his customers. “As soon as the lights go on, they come.”

With that, he got back to work, stacking not books, but rows of freshly baked bread rolls sprinkled with poppy, pumpkin, flax, sesame or sunflower seeds that have brought townspeople flocking. Next to him stood a small refrigerator hung with “ahle wurst” — a delicious air-dried, salami-like pork sausage that is one of the region’s culinary specialties — while in the center aisle, organic tomatoes and cucumbers vied with crime novels for table space.

With this unusual assortment, Mr. Frühauf has bolstered sales and kept people coming in, no mean feat in a place like Bad Sooden-Allendorf, population 8,500. Here, in the wooded, castle-studded region where the Brothers Grimm gathered their fairy tales, the decline in readership seen in recent years across Germany as digital media competes with books for people’s time and attention is compounded by a number of typically rural problems: an aging population, weak local economy, deteriorating infrastructure and the rise of big-box shopping centers and chain stores.

. . . .

Mr. Frühauf’s grandfather founded a bookbindery nearly a century ago, right here on the ground floor of the family house on the market square; Mr. Frühauf grew up above the bookstore, which his parents and uncle ran together. Five years ago, when he saw the numbers, Mr. Frühauf — who still lives upstairs, with his mother and his wife — said the situation was clear: “We had to do something.”

At the same time, news came that the town’s last two bakeries were closing. For residents like Mr. Frühauf, who remember when half a dozen local bakers strove to make the town’s best cream-covered plum cake, cumin roll or pumpernickel loaf, this blow was followed by hopeful news: Norbert Schill, who had lost his storefront lease, wanted to keep baking.

“I said, ‘before there’s no fresh bakery, I’ll clear a shelf, and we can sell the bread here,’” Mr. Frühauf said. Mr. Schill agreed to give it a try.

. . . .

Mr. Schill, the baker, said he for one was very happy to have found such an open-minded partner in the bookseller. “There’s a saying, I remember learning as a child, from the old people. ‘Go with the times, or with time, you’ll go.’”

Before long, customers asked Mr. Frühauf if he could start selling the sausages Mr. Schill used to sell — like the bakeries, the town’s once plentiful supply of butchers had dwindled, as shops went out of business or owners grew old and died. Customers, particularly older ones, were not always able to drive out of town to get their cumin or garlic fix. So Mr. Frühauf cleared some more space and bought a small refrigerator.

Link to the rest at The New York Times and thanks to Dave for the tip.