Kwame Spearman Opening a New Chapter With Denver Book Society

Kwame Spearman has been busy these past few years. The Denver native worked on the East Coast for a while, but returned to become a co-owner of the much-beloved — and at the time, already beleaguered — Tattered Cover in 2020. An unsuccessful bid in the 2023 Denver mayoral race took him out of that position temporarily, and then permanently, as Spearman pivoted to run for the Denver Board of Education, aiming for an at-large seat that eventually went to former East High principal John Youngquist.

Spearman is an East High graduate with a lot of love for the school and the neighborhoods surrounding it — not to mention a fan of the Hue-Man Experience bookstore, which stood proud at the corner of Champa Street and Park Avenue West from 1984 through its closure in 2000. Spearman's memories of that store were so strong that he developed a new division within Tattered Cover focused on Black representation and curating diverse literary selections for organizations and individuals, just as the Hue-Man Experience had.

Now Spearman is opening a new chapter. Along with partner Rich Garvin, a civic leader who serves on the board of the Colorado Symphony and chairs the athletics committee at the Denver Athletic Club, he's acquired the building at 1700 Humboldt Street that's currently home to White Pie and Dos Santos. In the space that was Humboldt Kitchen + Bar for about a decade (and Strings for 27 years before that), Spearman plans to open Denver Book Society, an independent bookstore designed to also serve as a cultural hub.

"Denver needs vibrant, independent bookstores," Spearman says. "A combination of me being a first-time leader, navigating through the pandemic, and the Tattered Cover’s rich history made it challenging to implement some conceptual changes I felt were necessary for long-term success. Denver Book Society will be different — we will have the flexibility to innovate, adapt and truly reflect the community’s evolving needs."

Tattered Cover aside, the city has lost many of its bookstores and literary-friendly venues in recent years. BookBar closed in early 2023; The Bookies was recently put up for sale, and may close. And Mutiny Information Cafe shuttered its Denver location and moved to Englewood to focus more on comics (something it's doing nicely, by the way).

"The Humboldt space is incredibly funky," says Spearman. "It actually makes a perfect bookstore environment. It's got that sideroom that's all brick that would be an amazing event space. It already has a bar in place, which is something we want to do. And it's got a patio that's ideal for people sitting down, reading, conversing, all that. It's got the potential to be best-in-class in Denver."

Spearman's pulling not only from his own experience but that of friend Nicole Sullivan, who founded BookBar and bought and renovated The Bookies. "I still believe that BookBar had the right model," Spearman says. "The question is how do we build off her innovation? We're looking at doubling down on having a strong coffee service during the day, offering an area in which people can take meetings, relax, converse. And then having a best-in-class happy hour, and also having a dessert element as well."

Another focus of Denver Book Society will be pricing. "We're really working on thinking through that," Spearman says. "Right now, people are paying prices for a glass of wine that are pretty aggressive."

Events, too, will drive Denver Book Society's agenda."This is something I don't think anyone's figured out yet post-pandemic," Spearman says. "How do you get people out in the community again? How do you offer regular programming that people know will be available? How do we get off of Zoom and back into spaces? We're going to see if that model can work again."

The date for Denver Book Society's debut hasn't been set, but Spearman and Garvin hope to make the event space available by November, and are planning a holiday popup. They're targeting the first quarter of 2026 for the official opening.

In the meantime, Spearman is focusing on what he calls a "type of social entrepreneurshipism." While Denver Book Society remains a business launch, it's meant to be a sustainable and healthy one — and could even bring back the Hue-Man Experience element he'd worked to establish at Tattered Cover.

"We're in this time in which the only way we're going to actually make tangible improvements to society is to rely on entrepreneurs who have more than just a feel-good interest in getting things done, but who aren't taking so much from the bottom line that the outcome is negative," says Spearman. "This feels like the path forward."