Barnes & Noble Cafe

This Barnes N Noble Starbucks was not so great. Usually in other stores they don’t charge you for just a little more caramel syrup and when they said there would be an extra charge, they don’t wait for you to make a reply. I ordered the drink anyway and I went upstairs to read some books and drink the coffee. I also bought a bagel from Panera and decides not to eat upstairs, afraid I’d bother avid readers and book lovers and so I finished my coffee and went back down to finish the bagel. I grabbed the napkins to put on the table and suddenly the manager shows up and asked if I bought a drink from there and I said yeah, but I threw it away upstairs. And apparently he said I can’t eat a freaking bagel quickly because I don’t have my freaking cup to show I bought something from there. They don’t want to show other people its okay to eat there and I understand that but you know what, I’ve been waiting to eat a piece of bread for a while being considerate to others as Panera itself was damn full and I just have to eat this tiny thing standing up because you won’t let me use your tables or chairs to eat the damn thing because I don’t have a cup that says Starbucks. I still have the receipt to show proof I did make a purchase but I just wanted to be done with it. Truly this has made my day worse. Its not as if I were having a full meal or even a full sandwich but either ways, right now I’m not feeling so great about here.

So, this is my confession: I use B&N to audition travel books.
I travel frequently and when I am traveling to a new country, I try not to get into a rut by always buying the Frommer’s or the Lonely Planet or the Rick Steves or the Fodor’s. I try to take each one as it comes and B&N is a great place for me to buy a coffee, pull these off the shelf, make notes about which one I want to buy, and then go back and buy a used copy from Amazon.
I get great service at this B&N Café and no one seems to mind the guy tucked in the corner with his travel books. :-)
PS They have CHEESECAKE too!

Opening a B&N in Oak Park brought the mall up a notch, IMHO. It’s 2 stories (there are escalators) but the only entrances are on the ground floor of the mall and on the north side, to the parking lot. No entrance from the mall’s upper floor. Rhonda’s got it right, it’s right next to Panera’s and across the hall from American Girl. Both Panera’s and B&N could be good escapes for someone who doesn’t want to spend time in American Girl.
This isn’t the be-​all, end-​all B&N store, but it has a good cookbook section, plenty of fiction, and a good travel section. (The things I usually check out!) The café is nice — it’s Starbucks, but like the other ones at local B&N stores, it carries Cheesecake Factory cheesecakes, which are a nice treat!
This B&N is closest to where I live, so I shop it fairly often. It’s also handy if you have to return something you ordered from B&N on-​line.

This is conveniently right next to Panara bread Company, and adjacent to American Girl. I find it interesting that Oak Park Mall placed a Barnes and Noble inside the mall itself. I like Oak Park Mall for it’s unique shops, though Barnes and Noble isn’t unique, it is inside the mall.
This isn’t 2 floor, or three, atleast as I could see. It’s a bit smaller than the free standing Barnes and Noble in Independence. The largest being the one on the Plaza, or 119^th street.
The magazines are a complete selection in the back of the store. Near the magazines are bargain books. I personally thought the bargain books were a bit over done. The other sections are mostly complete, and there’s a large coffee shop. (I didn’t stop in the coffee shop).
I found it kind of cool to put a large store like Barnes and Noble inside Oak Park Mall. I suppose you could send the father and son over to Barnes and Noble while the mother and daughter shop inside American Girl Store? That would work.