Dream Books Thrift Bookstore Reopens After Renovations

When Denver native David Chung started Dream Books Co. back in 2008, it was really all about figuring out what he was going to do next. He'd just graduated from Smoky Hill High School in Aurora and didn't have the money for college, but wanted to go. So he started selling books off his parents' shelves, at least at first.

"It was right in the middle of the financial crisis," Chung recalls. "So I just started selling books my family owned on Amazon and Half.com back when that existed." From there, it expanded to a book-selling business he operated in his parents' basement in Aurora, buying half-ton lots of books from Goodwill excess-inventory auctions. "It all grew pretty organically," recalls Chung.

From those humble beginnings grew a Denver success story: Dream Books has survived seventeen years and is back in  a retail space it took on in 2022. After a short closure for renovations, the retail store is reopening on Monday, March 17, at 4455 Grape Street, where every book is under $5. 
Granted, the profit margins aren't huge — while Dream Books was able to pay his way through college, Chung says that if he did the math, "I was making less than minimum wage."

Chung wasn't the only one on the payroll, though — early on, he hired a lot of his high school buddies to staff the burgeoning enterprise. Most of those friends have moved on from Dream Books, but the company helped them in getting through school as well. Chung recalls one friend who was going to law school, and actually got fired from his job because he fell asleep at work due to the late nights studying. Chung offered him a position at Dream Books. "I told him, come work with us," Chung laughs. "We're pretty chill over here."

That easy-going nature masks a strongly entrepreneurial spirit, as evidenced by the prodigious growth of book resellers. Chung is also no stranger to taking strategic risks and recognizing opportunity when he sees it. "We've almost closed our doors several times," Chung admits. The first time was when he graduated from CU Denver with a business management degree and was faced with what he calls a "pretty cool job offer," or sticking with the start-up that had put him through school. He chose to keep the Dream Books dream alive and made it to 2015 before hitting another snag.

"Business is tough," Chung admits, "especially when you're in your twenties and don't have a lot of life experience. We had maybe a few thousand dollars left in the business account, with bills to pay that amounted to a lot more than that." While he was muddling through, trying to keep the business open, an opportunity arose.

"Goodwill approached us because they were looking to wind down their e-commerce book program," Chung says. "So, we built this wonderful partnership with them where we'd process all their books for them, sell them, and give them back a certain percentage." That business relationship put the company solidly back in the black — early 2020.

"Our partnership with Goodwill expired right before COVID," Chung says. "At the time, our business model relied on us getting massive quantities of books from thrift stores. Suddenly, they were all shut down. So once again, I was thinking maybe it was time to hang up my hat and close Dream Books down."

But times of strife can sometimes give with one hand while taking away with the other. "I got this call from Jefferson County Public Library," Chung recalls. "The executive director there said they had 60,000 books that they had no idea what to do with. They'd collected them all for a book sale to raise funds for the library, but obviously, with everything shut down, they couldn't do it. So we offered to help them in a similar way as we had for Goodwill, and it worked. After that, library after library contacted us asking if we could do the same for them. At this point, we have relationships like that with most of the public library systems up and down the Front Range."

That was when Dream Books changed from "really just being an online bookseller" to a community-focused business," Chung says. "We're not so much creating value by selling books online anymore. We're helping organizations of all types fund the good work they all do, including public school systems."

The Dream Books statistics speak for themselves: Since starting business in 2008, it's redistributed over 7 million books, which is 8.5 million pounds of material that didn't go to landfills. And through the arrangements it's made with over 120 Front Range organizations, it's been able to give back over $800,000 to those community partners.

Chung is thankful that he's been able to make a go of the business for the past seventeen years, especially given the turmoil in the modern era. "It's sort of been this If You Give a Mouse a Cookie type of situation," he grins. "Everything has just been snowballing into bigger and better things."

Dream Books is open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday through Friday at 4455 Grape Street; it also sells books through its online store. For more information, see the Dream Books website.