Hi, hello, what’s up? We’re Alec and Kitty, two lovable nonbinary, neurospicy nerds, longtime pals, and, most recently, business partners. We met co-managing the sticker book & paper doll spinner racks at a certain massive Portland bookstore and somehow managed to survive with both our sanity (mostly) intact and a lasting friendship. 

More importantly, we are the folks working very hard to bring you Field Day Books & Bottles!

What is Field Day Books & Bottles? Thanks for asking — we’d love to tell you!  

Field Day is an inclusive bookstore and bottle shop selling a lovingly curated collection of new and used titles alongside a hand-picked selection of beers, wines, ciders, and n/a beverages coming to NE Portland this Spring. We’ve got some big plans, but we’ll get to the details later. 

First, let us take you there: 

Field Day is where you’ll find a new hiking guide for this weekend, used copies of all of those books you’ve been meaning to read but haven’t quite gotten around to, and your newest literary obsession you won’t shut up about for the next 3-6 months (sorry not sorry to your friends). It’s your go-to spot when you're bored with your usual drink of choice, when you want to impress your in-laws with something funky and local, or when you need a variety of beverage options to bring to your next D&D session. It’s the place you return to on a dark, rainy day when you just need somewhere to be and the place you take all your friends when they visit (bonus points if it’s trivia night). It’s an evening at a cozy pub in the Shire and a whirlwind European food and wine tour with your ex-turned-friend-turned-??? (if you know you know) all in one.

Field Day is your new home away from home, and we can’t wait to share it with you.

HOWEVER.

We need your help! Unfortunately, capitalism continues to exist and, therefore, all of the wonderful things we want to give you cost a shocking amount of money. We’re just a bookseller and a non-profit manager (two famously lucrative careers) with a vision and very little capital not already set aside for our basic needs. We can only host so many bake sales before we gotta call in reinforcements.

Which brings us to… 

Our projected start-up costs are ~$30,000. This includes the big things like our shop space rental deposit, shelving and fixtures, POS system, refrigerators, and projected beginning inventory costs (you know, the books & bottles) as well as all of the many little things it takes to create and run a business. We’ve already secured $10,000, and we’re asking for your help to raise the remaining $20,000. 

It’s A LOT, we know. We’re doing our best to keep costs down as much as possible with a considerable amount of DIY because we’ve never met an art, craft, or project we couldn’t handle. Even so, it turns out opening a bookstore/bottle shop is hard and expensive? So far it’s been a lot less ‘deep philosophical conversations about literature over bougie beer’ and a lot more ‘making a spreadsheet for everything and melting our brains trying to find tech companies not owned by fascists’ (way harder than you’d think). To be clear, we’re not complaining; this is 1000% a labor of love and we wouldn’t trade it for the world. But, we could definitely use your help getting to the good part a little sooner. 

One of the great things about this Indiegogo campaign is that even if we don’t fully reach our goal, we will still receive your generous donations. No matter what, your contributions will go toward all the same things and greatly help us on the road to making this place a reality. If we surpass our goal, those extra funds will go toward Field Day’s emergency fund and paying lil ol’ us a liveable wage, ensuring we’ll be around for our community for years to come. In short: the more we raise, the more freedom we have to make the cozy hangout spot of your dreams. 

Apart from the invaluable street cred of saying, “I helped build Field Day,” we’ve got a veritable cornucopia of fun items for you to choose from for helping us do this dang thing! Plus, all backers will get an invite to our soft open/thank-you party! 

Sincerely, we kind of assume that if you’re here, you’re the type of person who earnestly wants to help make this space a reality in your community. The perks just happen to be a really awesome bonus. And who knows, we might just dream up some new perks for you as things get rolling, so stay tuned!

We love a local independent bookstore. We love the kind where you can get lost among the shelves and the kind where you can run your fingers across every spine without taking a step. We love the ones you can spend a whole day in, curled up in a well-loved armchair by the window and the ones where you only need to stop in for a moment to find the perfect beach read. Most of all, we love that a good local bookstore is a reflection of its community, a little vignette of life wherever you happen to be. 

Truthfully, this all started for one selfish reason: There aren’t bookstores near us. The vast majority of Portland’s bookstores are concentrated in the West and Central East sides of the city, leaving book-loving Portlandians East of 50th with very limited options. Field Day began as a “super hypothetical” idea borne of frustration, but has grown into so much more. What’s become clearer and clearer each step along this process is the kind of space we want Field Day to be: a space that feels safe and welcoming — a space that centers joy. 

Field Day is an ode to daily pleasures, big and small. It’s a celebration of and, perhaps, an incitement to live life to the fullest. It’s an invitation to find a glimmer of good in even the simplest of things. And we’re not sure about you, but it feels to us like that’s needed now more than ever. 

Field Day will be in outer NE Portland because that’s where it’s needed. We’re going to work with schools and libraries to source the books they want and need because the kids are going to be alright; we’ll make sure of it. We’re going to stock our bookshelves across genres with a particular emphasis on queer and BIPOC content, titles from small and/or local presses, and non-English language titles and translations in every section because a bookstore should reflect all of its community. Our drink selection will run the gamut of beer, wine, cider, and n/a options from Czech pilsners to hop waters, Basque ciders to sparkling rosés, spiced meads to cold brew coffees, and will always prominently feature local brewers and distillers because we believe you deserve options and sometimes the best ones are close to home. We’ll host a variety of events (and let you host your own) because this is more than a store, it’s a place to be. And we’re going to make a ton of great shop merchandise because it’s fun and you deserve a little treat.

We’ve never done this before! While Alec & Kitty both have extensive experience in multiple areas of the industry, neither have run a crowdfunding campaign or launched a brick and mortar shop before. We do have an amazingly supportive community behind us who have done both those things and more and we’re confident our combination of skills and experience will translate well. But, we’re not perfect and we expect to learn a lot on the way. 

Additionally, the world is a tumultuous place at the best of times and especially so of late. While we’re aces at project management, there are a lot of things that are out of our control. Specific to this campaign, we’ve done our best to provide realistic estimates for everything from cost of goods to shipping timelines, but those are subject to change. That said, we are going to keep y’all updated every step of the way and anticipate you’ll get all of your goods no later than June.

• Share this with your friends, your family, your coworkers, your book club, your rabbi, your dog-walker — truly anyone and everyone! We cannot overstate how helpful this is!
• Share your time and expertise! Are you a Quickbooks whisperer or did your aunt secretly invent Eventbrite? Can you craft really beautiful shelves or confidently install a sink? Do you own a truck? Or, do you just have a lot of free time and don’t hate lifting heavy things? Shoot us an email at hello@fielddaybb.com! It’s just the two of us and, while we already have an incredibly talented and supportive community behind us, we can always stand to make that community bigger. 
• Do you own a local bakery, plant shop, roastery, brewery, or other cool business and would be interested in collaborating? Hit us up at hello@fielddaybb.com with “collab” in the subject line. We’d love to hear from you!
• Click here to sign up for our newsletter Message in a Bottle: bimonthly, bisexual, bibliophilic.
• Follow us on Instagram @fielddaybb to keep up with the latest Field Day news! 

Now let’s get to the fun stuff...