As befits a bookstore with an eponymous lion on staff, our (soft) opening day was a roaring success. Thank you so much to everyone who stopped by the store, wished us well on Facebook, and shared our madly enthusiastic tweets. We really appreciate your support, and can’t wait to meet many, many more of you lovely readery people.

Asked to reflect on opening day madness, Curmudgeon in Chief Dr. Joe had this to say:

I’m so exhausted and overwhelmed that it’s hard to put my feelings as a bookstore owner into words. Most of the time you work hard for years and then something happens and—BANG!—it’s over and all you’re left with are the memories. I’ve dreamed about opening a bookstore for a long time and over the past year have put in tons and tons of work to make that dream a reality. But opening the store is not the end, it’s just the beginning. Watching Malvern change and grow and become part of the Austin literary community makes slogging through inventory and learning the POS system (which I actually love doing) worth every minute.

If you fancy a glimpse of the storm before the calm, here are a few photos from the last couple of (rather hectic) days…

We’re due to open in less than twenty-four hours, and honorary store cat Fuzz is supervising a few urgent software updates.

Thirty minutes before opening and things are still… adorably disheveled?

But we’ve learned the first rule of decorating: flowers make it fancy (thank you, kind givers of flowers!)

We’re delighted to meet our first-ever paying customer.

We hope you’ll stop by soon, pick up some poems, and pat the cat. He purrs every time someone buys a Birds, LLC title.