Rough Draft Bar & Books
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In the summer of 2019, I brought two friends from college upstate for the weekend to show them my hometown, at which point I discovered that a number of businesses had opened since I’d moved away. Long-vacant stone buildings in Kingston, New York’s uptown historical stockade district had become home to the music venue BSP Kingston and the vintage shop Lovefield Vintage. I almost felt like I’d mistakenly taken, not the Amtrak north, but instead the L into Brooklyn.
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Among these new additions was Rough Draft Books & Bar. My friends and I entered the warmly-lit, wood-ceiling store one evening and took in the long, curated front tables of new releases alongside shelved displays of guides to the Hudson Valley. As we made our way to the bar at the side and ordered some wine, I noticed people on couches in the back finishing up a round of drag bingo, while others perched at the counter in the window with laptops and coffee mugs. It felt like exactly the kind of literary communal space I had always wanted growing up: somewhere equally equipped for meeting up with friends as it was for drafting out plans for a new writing project, a place where a person could show up when it opened mid-morning and find themselves not leaving until late at night.
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This was exactly the vibe owners Amanda and Anthony Stromoski were going for when they opened Rough Draft in November 2017. “We’ve always wanted to find a way…to create a space where neighbors and visitors could come to sit, spend a few hours, drink a beer and read a book, catch up with friends or attend a reading,” they said.
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In 2016, the couple left their jobs in Brooklyn and relocated upstate after having discovered Kingston while hiking in the Catskills. Noticing that Kingston lacked an independent bookstore selling new books (their neighbors Half Moon Books around the corner offer a great used selection), they decided to use the knowledge they’d picked up visiting bookstores, craft beer bars, and coffee shops around the country over the years to launch a venue that blended all three. They raised $150,000 through friends and family, and used an SBA loan to acquire and renovate the historic storefront space, as well as purchase equipment and inventory.
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Rough Draft — the name both a pun on unfinished draught beer and pieces of writing — was in part inspired by a place the Stromoskis stumbled upon in Chapel Hill, NC, called The Spotlight, which sold used books and sandwiches during the day and then became a bar and poetry club at night. Spotty Dog in nearby Hudson, NY and Freebird in Brooklyn were also influential. “A lot of bookstores have companion coffee stores or cafés,” the couple said, “but we wanted Rough Draft to feel like an all-hours place that would be popular in the evening as well as during the day, and that had the feel of a real pub and gathering space.”
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The pandemic, however, has made it difficult for people to gather anywhere, let alone indoors in bookstores. Rough Draft closed their store completely for about a month last year, only taking orders online via email for books, coffee beans, beer, and other non-perishable items for home delivery within a 20-minute radius. When this system soon became overwhelming, the Stromoskis decided to build an e-commerce website and began selling everything online. The store eventually reopened last year, but remained largely take-out only, while expanding their online sales to include a Bookshop.org storefront for customers from all over the country. They also recently reopened an outdoor eating space now that the weather is warmer, but the store has yet to host any in-person events. While trying to navigate restructuring the business, it’s been difficult to plan everything virtually, though they did host the re-launch party for Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York, edited by Sari Botton.
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The Stromoskis hope that both their online store and outdoor seasonal seating options will become permanent fixtures of their business even after the pandemic. They’ve also found that an unexpected upside during the past year has been the unwavering support of their community as people have actively tried to shop local. “Our book sales actually went up in 2020,” they said. “People stuck at home with more time to read seems to have been a good thing!”
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Increases in book sales have also helped to balance out the losses Rough Draft saw in sales of beer, coffee, and food, which have historically been selections rooted in supporting New York businesses — they’ve offered a wide variety of Hudson Valley-brewed beers and ciders as well as pies from Brooklyn’s Down Under Bakery. The Stromoskis also became more involved in the Kingston business community when they recently co-opened Kingston Bread + Bar. The local community Rough Draft serves is actually expanding as a result of the pandemic. According to a recent New York Times article that analyzed change-of-address requests sent to the U.S. Postal Service, Kingston and neighboring towns in the Hudson Valley are seeing a significant change in the net in-migration rate. This is likely due to people moving out of New York City with the increased ability to work remotely.
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While it’s unclear exactly how long this trend will continue and how exactly it might benefit the towns that it’s affecting, Rough Draft plans to stay as community-oriented as ever, promoting and stocking books for several local book clubs, in addition to participating in community-wide book events as they return. In the interim, they have started a Read, Sip, Review program where regulars can purchase, read, and review books in order to earn pizza coupons from local favorite Vincenzo’s. Rough Draft has also made an effort to partner with local philanthropic organizations through their Mission Monday program, where profits from one Monday each month are donated to groups such as A.J. Williams-Myers African Roots Center, Kingston Food Co-Op, andRaising HOPE, a mentoring program for women. Additionally, the Rough Draft team is grateful to have been nominated for the Chronogrammies again this year — awards presented by the Hudson Valley culture magazine Chronogram that are voted on by the community — and they hope to defend their titles of Best Bookstore, Best Coffee Shop, and Best Remote Workspace.
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Recommendations from the Booksellers
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
Anthony recently read this black comedy, narrated by a miserable young woman living in 2000s Manhattan who embarks on a year-long, drug-aided hibernation to heal from the loss of her parents. “It's a laugh-out-loud, mean-but-meaningful read," says Anthony, who enjoyed how the narrator’s lack of filter brings the reader closer to her humiliating displays, painful relationships, and generally difficult moments. “Moshfegh does the most wonderful thing literature can do: she makes us say, ‘Wow, that’s how I feel, but no one’s ever put it into words before!’”
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Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
This historical fantasy horror was one of Amanda’s latest reads. Set in 1950s Mexico, the novel opens with a gorgeous, quick-witted debutante receiving a mysterious note from her newly-wed cousin, asking for her to come save her. The debutante sets forth for High Place: a creepy, countryside mansion full of alluring but mysterious characters with secrets from a dark past. “The book’s fierce and feisty heroine becomes trapped — physically and psychologically — by the twisted and troubled family her cousin has married into,” says Amanda. “Think Yellow Wallpaper meets Dracula, with a bit of science fiction mixed in.”
The Round House by Louise Erdrich
The National Book Award Winner was the last in-person author event that the bookstore hosted before stay-at-home orders took effect. “It was very nerve-wracking at the time,” Caine says, remembering all of the questions still up in the air a year earlier. “But as far as I know, no one got sick, and it was very inspiring.” This book—Caine’s pick for the best Midwestern novel—tells the story of a boy on the Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota seeking justice following a crime that upended his family.
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