When Richard Skorman launched Poor Richard’s as a college senior 50 years ago, he didn’t quite predict the bookstore would grow over the years into the Colorado Springs institution it is today.

“My father always called my bookstore a hobby. ‘When are you going to get a real job?'” Skorman recalled his father asking, a smile playing on his lips.

Seated next to Skorman inside Poor Richard’s Restaurant on North Tejon Street downtown, on the Friday morning ahead of the long Memorial Day holiday weekend, is his wife and business partner, Patricia Seator. The scent of fresh pizza dough wafted through the dining room as employees opened the restaurant for the day.

“It’s been a great adventure for both of us,” Skorman said. “We love our customers. We have great employees; many of them have been here a long time. We have lots of regulars. We love that people make themselves at home, and that’s been a huge part, I think, in our success, really from the beginning.”

He launched Poor Richard’s Used Paper Books while he was a senior at Colorado College in 1975 after the bookstore where Skorman had been working went out of business.

When his former employer handed him his last paycheck — a stack of books instead of cash, because they had none — the self-described book lover thought to himself, “Maybe I’ll open my own bookstore.”

Skorman first sold books out of a home on North Tejon Street. His customers would help themselves to what they needed, then leave cash in the cash box he carried around. They calculated their own sales tax using a chart Skorman kept handy.

Two years later, in 1977, the bookstore became Poor Richard’s Feed and Read, opening in a brick-and-mortar location in the 300 block of North Tejon, a place where patrons could enjoy a bite to eat while losing themselves in their books.

The Poor Richard’s concept expanded a few more times over the decades, evolving into a community hub and landmark that now includes a book and gift store, a toy store, a restaurant and wine bar. It has served generations of visitors of all ages and from all backgrounds.

At one time, Poor Richard’s even included an on-site independent movie theater, the smallest of its kind in the country. Skorman and Seator eventually sold the theater side of the business to Kimball Bayles, who went on to operate Kimball’s Peak Three Theater downtown. The theater has remained vacant since Bayles’ death in January 2023.

In 1986, Skorman sold Poor Richard’s Feed and Read and moved to New York City, where he wrote and published a book about independent films — and where he met Seator.

In 1992, the couple returned to Colorado and to Poor Richard’s. Skorman bought his business back that year.

Seator and Skorman co-founded Little Richard’s Toy Store in 1995, and a decade later in 2005 launched Rico’s Café & Wine Bar.

Also in 2005, the couple renamed the bookstore Poor Richard’s Books & Gifts, offering a diverse selection of new and gently used books as well as gifts, stationery and greeting cards.

“It’s great because we will hear from people later, ‘Oh, we decided to form this group or this nonprofit, and we met at Poor Richard’s (to discuss it),” said Skorman, who also served on the Colorado Springs City Council four times between 1999 and 2021.

“Or parents will come with their kids, and there’s not a lot of places for kids to be welcomed … downtown. Moms tell us all the time, ‘We’re so grateful you’re here. Otherwise, I’d be at home; but I can come (here) and be on my computer a little bit and my kid can play.'”

Carm O’Sullivan has been a Poor Richard’s customer for more than three decades. Having lunch inside Rico’s Café one early Friday afternoon with her friend, author and fellow Poor Richard’s customer Michelle Stewart-Gardner, O’Sullivan remembered the days when she brought her children into the store and they would shop for books, toys and other items.

“I love it here. … I always come here to get books and gifts. I hope they keep doing what they’re doing and never close. This place feels like home,” O’Sullivan said.

Stewart-Gardner and her husband are also regulars.

“We shop local books, have food, and my husband loves the classic toy store. We always come here for Christmas (shopping),” Stewart-Gardner said.

The community’s love and support for Poor Richard’s has been evident even in hard times.

When the restaurant caught fire in 1982 and the business was underinsured by thousands of dollars, Skorman wasn’t sure he’d be able to reopen. But friends, neighbors and even the prominent American poet Allen Ginsberg came together and raised funds to reopen the business.

Poor Richard’s growth through the decades helped the business weather economic and industry challenges, such as the rise of online retail giant Amazon, which began as an online bookstore when it was founded in the mid-1990s.

“In the early 2000s, a lot of independent bookstores were going out of business and were really struggling because of Amazon. One of the ways that stores survived was through adding gifts,” Seator said.

At first, the gift selection at Poor Richard’s was minimal, said Seator, the organization’s lead buyer.

The couple opened the cafe and launched its gift shop the day after Thanksgiving in 2005, with only about $10,000 or so budgeted to build up the store’s gift inventory that first holiday season.

The gifts concept took off.

“By the end of January (2006), we had nothing left. I thought, ‘Oh, I have to do this again!'” Seator said. “So I did, many times over the last 20 years. It just worked.”

When it comes to Amazon or other book retailers like Barnes & Noble, Seator says they don’t compete with stores like Poor Richard’s.

“We aren’t competing, because we’re in a completely different realm than they are. We don’t think of them as our competitors. What we’re offering is traditional bookstore experience, with very knowledgeable staff who can make recommendations, who help people out,” Seator said.

When Tattered Cover, which was Colorado’s largest independent bookstore and a Denver-area fixture for decades, opened a location at 112 N. Tejon St. in June 2022, two blocks south of Poor Richard’s, Skorman and Seator had some concern, Seator said.

“It was extremely unusual for an indy bookstore to open close to another one. … So we were surprised and concerned because that is not a formula that has seemed to work across the country,” Seator said.

But Tattered Cover’s brief 16-month stay in Colorado Springs didn’t hurt sales too much at Poor Richard’s.

Tattered Cover closed its downtown Springs location in October 2023 after its parent company filed for bankruptcy that same month. Barnes & Noble later acquired Tattered Cover for $1.8 million last July.

Sales of new books during the 2022-2023 holiday season went down 20% at Poor Richard’s once Tattered Cover moved in, Seator said. But overall daily sales at Poor Richard’s did not decrease and the business continued growing throughout the year.

Instead, Tattered Cover’s expansion into Colorado Springs highlighted the independent bookstores that were already doing business here.

“People would write on social media that they were happy to finally have an independent bookstore downtown, and our customers would reply that Poor Richard’s was already downtown. It really brought a lot more attention to the brick-and-mortar stores in town, which was helpful, I think, to all the bookstores downtown, to us,” Seator said.

Poor Richard’s also succeeded in the face of challenges throughout the global COVID-19 pandemic, which shuttered businesses and forced business owners to get creative in order to stay open.

During the pandemic, Skorman and Seator installed electric stove ovens, altered restaurant seating, created online retail and expanded their patio space to adhere to fluctuating local, state and federal health guidelines.

At the end of 2021, Skorman stepped down from his latest stint as a city councilman so he could pivot back to focusing on his businesses. He ran for office in April of that year assuming the COVID-19-related challenges businesses were experiencing would ease as vaccines were introduced, but that had not been the case, Skorman said in November 2021, when he announced his resignation.

“People in Colorado Springs really do like small businesses, and it’s something that I think many people came from, maybe from smaller … towns,” Skorman said. ” … They like the idea of locally owned businesses, not just us. … Thank you, Colorado Springs, for a great, great ride, an incredible way to make a living and to meet so many wonderful people. We appreciate you all.”