The Twisted Spine, New York City’s first ever horror and dark literature bookstore, materialized right in time for spooky season on Sept. 6 in Brooklyn.

The bookstore began as a popup in 2024, appearing at different events around the city. Bookstore owners Lauren Komer and Jason Mellow were always met with the same question: “where are you located?” Mellow described the online aspect of their store as a necessary evil, but they never viewed themselves as an online bookstore because they always knew that one day it would be created into a physical space.

Komer, a neuroscientist, and Mellow, a trained violinist, resurrected a horror bookstore within a supposedly dying industry without a business background.

Mellow was able to put a heavy focus on community and building relationships while Komer approached it from a research perspective, in which how to start became her scientific question.

Their unique backgrounds led to the success of the bookstore.

During The Twisted Spine’s grand opening weekend, the line went out the door at 306 Grand St. and down the block with a two-hour wait just to get inside.

Mellow, who was born and raised in New York, said he’s always learned to walk the other direction when he sees lines like those and was shocked to see people staying through heat and pouring rain to get into their store.

The two were planning to stay with their online store and in- person popup format for five years until Komer temporarily lost her job at the National Institute of Aging during the first round of mass federal layoffs in February.

With the help of their fellow horror loving community, the two raised $41,485 in just 32 days through their Kickstarter project to help offset how much Komer and Mellow needed to take out in loans for opening costs. Some of those donors will get their very own tombstone in the bookstore’s outdoor patio graveyard as a thanks.

When narrowing down which spot to officially sign a lease on, having a cafe element to create a third space was extremely important to them. However, the neighborhood also held a rare enticing element. The neighborhood Komer called “Analog Alley” was a major factor in finalizing the shop they decided on.

The same block is home to Twenty Sided and Night Owl Video. Komer and Mellow expressed how open and welcoming the two stores have been to them from the moment their lease was signed back in May.

Night Owl Video opened in April. Co-owner Aaron Hamel expressed how he and his partner Jessica Mills got tired of waiting for someone else to open a physical media store after many others closed, so they decided to do it themselves. Hamel said physical media stores are becoming even more important as the reliance on streaming services grows. “In addition to streaming services just becoming more expensive starting to have ads and stuff, I think we sort of struck at the right time because people are sort of getting wise to the idea that even if you own some digitally, you don’t really own it, you know?” he said, “You just own a license to view it which can be revoked at any time.”

Twenty Sided, which opened in 2011, is a store dedicated to tabletop games, live-action roleplay and boardgames. Jill Calderon at Twenty Sided said the people working there know what it’s like to be a small business, so they ensure they’re always there for others and try to bring something unique to the community. She said that while they each have their own niches in terms of communities, there’s a horror and physicality overlap that brings everyone through all three stores whenever they visit.

The Twisted Spine underwent a four-month process before it was ready. The pair were given full creative control on the store’s appearance, from exposing the original brick in the 130-year-old building to the lighting fixtures. Although the bookstore is a niche-specific place, Komer said the cozy, dark academic style was a design choice to have “the horror staying between the pages.”

Once the pair decided on the cafe aspect of the bookstore, they wanted to ensure they were doing it right. Because neither had any barista experience, they learned everything with the help of their coffee supplier, Devoción Coffee. They developed some of their specialty lattes like the Mary Shelley and the Vampire’s Kiss, which people can enjoy in a skull mug in-store.

As for The Twisted Spine’s drink menu, Komer said the decision they have made that’s important to them is not serving matcha-based drinks. “Unfortunately matcha is just very unsustainable. It’s been very difficult for the farmers in Japan and we don’t want to contribute to that issue,” she said.

While they do have larger authors and more popular books in stock, Komer said, “We have a lot of independent presses that we work with, and that is a lot of authors find that the stories and things they want to tell in a kind of a horror space don’t really fit a good box for a bigger publisher. And so, there’s a lot of really interesting and exciting stories coming from the smaller presses.”

They also have their very own Twisted Spine exclusive candle from Mise en Scènt, a Brooklyn-based candle studio that creates candles inspired by films, along with jewelry pieces from New York-based brands Caltori and Alex Streeter.

While the store is mostly Komer’s focus as Mellow prioritizes his music, her goal is to be in a bookstore version of a senior primary investigator in the science world, with the ability to “eventually take a step back and not be in store as often” allowing her to build up the store’s infrastructure.

Emory Wotak, a member of a horror book club in the city, made their way to the bookstore because of the club’s excitement toward having that horror third space. Wotak expressed how the niche-specific store allows the genre to be seen more in its entirety and all the different subgenres it reaches, as opposed to the one or two shelves in traditional bookstores.

Since Mellow is a movie buff, they made sure to install a projector in the back of the store for curated horror screenings and a chance for authors to present a movie that may have inspired their work during book events.

The bookstore’s community building aspect continues to be apparent as they continued their events throughout October, including a partnership with Brooklyn Animal Action where customers had the chance to find their feline familiar as part of The Scald Crow book release.

While it may be a horror bookstore, that doesn’t mean they plan on stopping all the fun once the fall season ends. The Twisted Spine is planning on having different seasonal drinks, such as peppermint drinks and hot chocolate for the holiday season and floral drinks for Valentine’s Day. It has a seasonal books table that will update throughout the year.

As Halloween comes to an end, Komer expressed excitement for a possible cannibal stories table for Thanksgiving before switching into a holiday table, and perhaps folk horror in the springtime. The bookstore will also continue to host events throughout the year along with their monthly “Twisted Hearts” and “Spine Chillers book club.

Every autumn, Komer and Mellow plan on commissioning one author with the help of Shortwave Publishing to write a short story that has the bookstore as a cameo in it. For their first short story, critically acclaimed author Victor Lavalle wrote “Whatever Kills You Makes You Stronger.” All yearly stories will be sold exclusively at the bookstore as part of the “Tales from The Twisted Spine” series