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One recent summery morning, I took a walk through Georgetown’s Rose Park to check out Flor Coffee + Books, a new coffee shop and bookstore with an Argentinian lilt. In their brick-lined courtyard, I chat with Carola, the co-owner and bookselling expert, and her daughter Olivia about the journey to opening Flor, why this bookstore is hosting Shabbat dinners, working retail, the romance of owning a coffee shop / bookstore combo, and what to read next.
Samuel: What brought you to the DMV?
Carola: I’m originally from Argentina. I moved from Buenos Aires to New York, lived there for a few years, and eventually came to DC. I’ve lived in Dupont Circle, Adams Morgan, and about ten years ago I moved to Georgetown. I’m quite involved in the Georgetown community in different ways, and I’m raising my daughters here.
Samuel: What’s made the DMV home?
Carola: I love DC! Like any other city, you have to find your community. For me, it was important to be part of a community of people from all over the world, and I found that in DC. It’s a city with a lot of cultural, social, culinary, and shopping offerings. It’s a city that brings a little bit of the best from many different worlds.
Samuel: So, you’re a co-owner of Flor Coffee + Books. What’s brought you here?
Carola: I had a long career in nonprofit management. In 2024, I quit my job and took a professional sabbatical with the goal of developing a business and financial plan to open an independent bookshop in Georgetown. My husband, as the good business man that he is, asked me: Have you ever done any retail work? I had to answer no. I applied to a number of bookseller positions and was hired by Barnes & Noble. I was part of the team that opened their new Georgetown location. Everybody there was my boss. It was a bit of a bath in humility, but it was probably the most amazing professional experience I’ve ever had.
After I put some applications in for retail spaces that were not accepted, I was discouraged. The financials for a bookshop are not necessarily as solid as for other retailers. I was ready to give up on this dream. But, I was close to a person in the Georgetown Business Improvement District, and he told me about this Argentine couple that was opening a coffee shop with a bookstore angle. It was perfect timing. We hit it off right away. The three of us being Argentine, we decided to develop an international bookshop focusing on authors from Latin America and Spain.
Olivia: If I can jump in, another really important part of the journey of Flor is how important books are in our family. We’re all very big readers and books are a fundamental part of our family. We’re always talking about books, exchanging them, discussing them at the dinner table. Books have always been very fundamental to our identity.
Samuel: As we speak today, Flor is about to host a Shabbat dinner, and you mentioned that it’s something you’re thinking of doing more regularly. Tell me about that!
Carola: One of our core values and mission as a business is building community. We’ve had a lot of success with our analog dinner nights on Thursdays – we’re at capacity or with waiting lists almost every week. And, I’m Jewish! We try to do Shabbat dinner with friends every month, and we wanted to replicate that more informal gathering around food to connect with friends and family. There’s something about marking the beginning of the weekend and leaving a bit of the week behind.
We are testing it out for now, but as long as there is interest, we’re happy to do it on a [regular] basis [Editor’s note: Their next one is scheduled for July 31st!]. Our idea is always to build community along a common interest. I think this age group of 20- to 35-year-olds, a lot of them have said they’re having a hard time finding community that’s outside of institutions. It’s so fulfilling when we have an event, you see people coming solo and leaving exchanging numbers with other people they met at Flor. That fills us with gratitude and makes us feel like we’re doing something right.
Samuel: Olivia, what was it like for you growing up with these Shabbat dinners at home? How are you carrying that forward as you move away for college?
Olivia: It’s been really meaningful for me to connect to other Jewish teens who perhaps aren’t as involved at synagogue as they were when they were younger. In the process of going up to your bar or bat mitzvah, it’s very intense, and then you kind of don’t know what to do afterwards. And so, this informal setting where you get together with Jewish people and create community…that’s what I saw at the first Shabbat [hosted by Flor]. I saw people like me who don’t have a [spiritual] home yet, or others don’t have family close by. It’s nice to know that there are different aspects of the religion that you can pursue; a fundamental aspect of being Jewish is the community that it builds, so it’s been nice to connect with people that I wouldn’t otherwise connect with.
And, talking about what it feels like to be Jewish in this moment has meant a lot to me. What does that mean to me? How do I want to connect with this?
Samuel: Speaking of family, what does it mean to have this space where we’re sitting here on a Monday morning and your daughter is at work with you?
Carola: I always saw this as a family project – even though the girls love to remind me that this is my thing and I shouldn’t drag them along to every event. But books are such an important part of our identity as a family! My younger daughter, Amalia, works here as a barista. Olivia is off to college in the fall, so I’m just enjoying every second I have with her while she’s in DC, including coming together to talk to you this morning.
But also, the people who come to Shabbat here are in a similar situation to where my daughters will be when they go to college. I wish for them to find their people, their community. What comes to my mind when we design these events is: What is the kind of thing that I would love my kids to join? We’re modeling what I hope they find.
Samuel: A coffee shop and bookstore is, I think, a very romanticized job to have. Break that romance for me. What’s surprised you?
Carola: When I was working on this project, probably 90% of the people I met for coffee said: “Oh my God, it’s my dream.” One thing that’s surprised me is how physically demanding the job is: books are heavy. Boxes of books are heavy. And you’re constantly moving books around. When I first started working at Barnes & Noble, I would finish my shifts and run home for a bath of Epsom salts.
But, to go back to the romance of it all…I was the first one to be skeptical about being able to make it work. It’s physical. The margins are so low. The rent is high. You need space. We’re finding that we have to be very creative about how we sell books. It’s the physical inventory, but we also have access to books in Spanish that our customers might not see in the store. So, people are ordering books through us. There’s so many people that would love to read in Spanish, and we have that offering.
The financial aspect is complicated if you’re just offering books. Flor works because we’re a very cool coffee shop with a bookstore, and a community space with meaningful programming that caters to our audience. We’ve been able to prioritize those three things in tandem in a cohesive way to provide an overall unique experience.
Samuel: Okay, a couple quick ones to close. What’s on your to-be-read shelf?
Carola: I try to alternate reading in Spanish, and in English. I want to keep up with what’s coming out in both languages. I’m currently reading Yesteryear, which is fascinating. And then we’re doing a book club for La Casa de Espiritus by Isabel Allende. We like doing bilingual book clubs, so we find books that people can read in either language.
Olivia: I want you to read The Original Daughter. It’s written so beautifully. I think you’d love it.
Samuel: Who else should people be reading?
Carola: Samanta Schweblin.
Samuel: You can host Shabbat dinner for any three people. Who are you inviting?
Carola: I would have Samanta Schweblin, just because she’s at the forefront of what people are reading now. I’d invite Julio Cortázar. And then Natalia Ginzburg.
Samuel: Last one. Finish the sentence: When Jews of the DMV gather…
Carola: They eat. They find themselves.
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