A Literary Haven for Book Lovers of all ages

In downtown El Dorado, Reliant Bookstore, located at 114 N. Vine, stands as a beacon of literary culture and community engagement in this Midwestern town. Since its inception five years ago in 2019, the independent bookstore has become a cherished destination for book lovers of all ages, offering a diverse selection of titles, hosting events and fostering a sense of belonging among its patrons. Many can visit https://www.reliantbookstore.com/ website to look and buy their own books.

Jesse McVay is the owner of Reliant Bookstore, was inspired to work here because when he got out of the military, his brothers had started multiple companies. He started YouTubing ways to flip stuff, he found some guys in California flipping books. That is how that all started, it started from just selling books online. McVay mostly enjoys seeing all kinds of people coming in the store and meeting them.

“I enjoy seeing all the different types of people that come in that are in different categories and there’s people who just have a respect and love for books,” McVay said. “Even greater than mine that I love seeing.”

He is passionate about sci-fi books and really enjoys reading books like that. Some special events that the bookstore hosted was the Forever Jewelry. They have even started to run Facebook ads. Reliant Bookstore mostly just has used books but they do have a section of new. They even have a partnership too. The main thing they do is process used books.“Now we do see trends like even during Covid-19 like old trilogies just took off again, like The Hunger Games was flying off the shelves, “Harry Potter” was flying off the shelf,” McVay said. “So we do see those trends in our sales.”

Customers might enjoy hidden gems that McVay recommends are home study such as gardening type books and travel books. The bookstore continues to contribute to the community. Some local school teachers that come in. The bookstore has done bag sales, or even just had teachers stop by and just told them they could grab a huge bag of books for their classrooms.

“We provide games and stuff like that, and it’s been fun,” McVay said. “There’s been study groups with even younger kids that have come in. We kind of just wanted a safe place. We’ve even had parents drop off their middle schoolers and run errands.”

His favorite part about interacting with customers who visit the bookstore is getting to know all kinds of people. McVay is a people person, so he loves talking to lots of people. He spent the majority of his life in El Dorado, and there’s still people who come in that he has never met before. He also enjoys watching the difference between people and their generations. There is much history behind the bookstore; it used to be the printing paper for Wichita and the surrounding cities that would have their newspaper printed there.

“They said it was even booming to the point where there’s 40 employees working here,” McVay said. “There’s a huge conveyor belt in the basement. The men’s restroom and the basement actually had lockers and showers. So it was like at one point, this was like a booming place.”

He is hoping as the bookstore grows, McVay is offering more and more employment to locals. He is very laid back and wants to continue to have more employees join the bookstore.

“So one major thing I would like to offer to the community, I guess we kind of do now, we’ve been around since 2019,” McVay said. “I’m hoping as we grow, I’m offering more and more employment to locals. I have different positions here. I’m pretty laid back. I’m very chill, if I have to put my foot down. You know, back there we have music blaring like I’m just laid back. I like the idea of providing especially to younger kids a place where they can come in, get started figuring out what it’s like to have a job, and learn some good structure. I’m hoping we can continue to grow in the next five years. We have 20 plus employees for this company. That’d be great.”