I Opened a Magazine Shop in the Digital Age. People Are Into It.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Stacy Mitchell, owner of Bold Magazine Shop. It has been edited for length and clarity.

In 2013, I visited Beijing and started a new tradition: buying a Vogue magazine from each country I traveled through. The Chinese Vogue was beautiful, emblematic of the place and culture.

Magazines have this way of transporting and engaging you in a way that online magazines just can’t do. You have to be totally present to take in a magazine, to understand how it’s curated, and to appreciate the beauty of the art and words within. Often, reading a magazine sparks an idea I pursue further. All of this involves time and presence.

But magazines aren’t read like they used to be.

I saw a wider variety of magazines outside the US

I went on to buy Vogue magazines from around the world, noticing that other countries seemed to have a wider variety of magazines than I saw in the US. While New York City had plenty of places to buy niche magazines, there weren’t many other towns and cities where I could access the magazines I’d seen during my travels.

It got me thinking and dreaming about owning my own magazine shop.

In 2024, the City of Portland issued an open call for small businesses to pitch to set up a shop in a gazebo right by the water.

For the first time, I started making actual plans for a store that sold magazines, planning how it would work, where I would get magazines, and how I would generate profit.

Even while I continued working my job, I researched endlessly to figure out how I could make my dream work.

I didn’t get the gazebo, but it was the catalyst I needed. I started looking for retail spaces and found an affordable building — one that needed some fixing up — in the center of Portland’s arts district.

I opened a magazine shop at the end of 2025

In the summer of 2025, I started leasing the space, and in November 2025, I opened my doors for the first time.

Inside my shop, there are 175 titles to choose from (and this number continues to grow), all neatly and minimalistically arranged by category on the walls and atop tables.

I’ve loved watching people come in to browse, deciding which magazine to purchase and take home or to the coffee shop next door to read.

The whole experience has been a learning curve. I’ve had to figure out how to buy from publishers and distributors around the world, which magazines to buy and how many of each to sell, and how to stay afloat in January and February, the slowest months for retail.

It’s all been worth it, especially after hearing people’s responses — either excitement that a magazine retailer has finally come to Portland, or surprise that I’d choose to open a magazine shop in this online-reading era. All of the responses spark conversation about magazines, which can only be a good thing.

I was really busy in the lead-up to Christmas, but it has been quieter in January and February. As the weather brightens, I’m expecting more and more people to walk through the door.

One rule I’ve made for the shop is that magazines must be really, really good and the most recent issue.

The most successful titles have been Pencil, Fukt, and Never Too Small, an Australian small-interiors magazine.

People are excited about physical magazines

Recently, a little girl came in and bought a magazine. Only after she left did I realize that my magazine shop might have ignited her love of magazines. My shop can do that.

Once, when I opened the shop, a woman waited expectantly outside for me to let her in, so excited that this type of shop now existed. Magazines had previously been a huge part of her life, and she couldn’t access them like she once could.

I’m excited about what the magazine shop will do for others and how it will inspire others to become magazine readers.

I have this feeling that magazines will become the new vinyl record. I think they’ll make a comeback, and I’m ready for it.