The Bookshop-Café Tucked Away in Budapest’s Jewish Quarter - Budapest Business Journal (original) (raw)

The mood is more akin to a university library than a commercial operation.

“I don’t think we have lots of different customers, but they come back frequently. We have people who come in every day or other day for coffee, and some come to work. I know people who are writing books or dissertations here.”

The speaker is Judit Pecák, who owns and runs Massolit. It is, she believes, the only bookstore-cafe today dedicated to selling solely new and second-hand English-language books in the Hungarian capital.

Despite opening in 2011, it remains relatively little known, even among long-term foreign residents. (A non-scientific survey sent out to two dozen such expatriates revealed just four in 10 respondents recognized the shop.)

It is just a 10-minute walk from the transport hub of Blaha Lujza tér, but its location, on Nagy Diófa utca, is not a main thoroughfare. It is on the fringes of the Erzsébetváros’ “party district,” but this is only a relatively recent development.

According to Pecák, when it first opened, “There was nothing in this area. It was one of the small streets, and it was difficult to get into,” she says.

It certainly had a rocky start. Founded in 2011 by David Miller, an American entrepreneur who had co-launched a similar venture in Krakow soon after the turn of the millennium, the move proved to be an expansion too far, and within a year, he invited Pecák to take over the business.

“I didn’t have anything to do with bookstores. I was working as a Russian and Polish translator and interpreter and also as a teacher of Hungarian as a foreign language. I had just moved back after living in different countries for 10 years, in Poland and Russia and the U.K., [but] because I had nothing to do and we were good friends, I said, OK,” she recalls. The young translator found herself at the bottom of a steep learning curve.

“It took us three years before we made any money,” she says by way of illustrating the struggle. Nor was she alone: Red Bus and Treehugger Dan’s, her two principal competitors in the city’s second-hand, foreign-language book trade, both pulled down their shutters for the last time in that period. Not that Pecák felt any joy in her competitors’ demise.

Bookstore Community

“I was happy that we had a kind of community. When Dan closed, after that, I felt all alone as a used bookstore, and it didn’t feel good,” she says.

As for herself, Pecák was not exactly the epitome of a thrusting, high-flying businesswoman determined to see the bottom line break records each year.

“In the beginning, I didn’t want to own the things. For me, to be a manager, an owner of a place, it took me years to get used to the fact!” she admits. Yet, through applying her personable business philosophy, the outlet has survived and built a support circle.

“We like working with small businesses, people like me. We have honey from the honey man; we know him, and he has good honey. We have specialty coffees, we get the beans from a farmer in Brazil, and we know his name. And our cakes are from a Hungarian food bank; we buy them so they can support their organization,” she enthuses. “As a small local business, that’s how you should survive.”

Indeed, building long-term business relationships counts in challenging times when people can support each other if there are payment delays.

“There is a trust. When we had to close in COVID times, our customers were really nice. They kept coming here, buying coffee at the door. They were trying [to support us]. It means, for them, Massolit is important,” she says. Combining books and cafe refreshments has also been crucial as a business model.

“As a [stand-alone] book store, I don’t know if we’d have survived. Some people come for a coffee, get interested in books, and start to read. And if someone comes for a book, they sit and have a coffee. So it’s a good combination. I think that’s how we can survive,” Pecák muses.

Karen Culver, a retired British manager and recent graduate of the Central European University, is one Massolit aficionado.

Homemade Feeling

“I’ve known it for several years. For me, it took over when TreeHugger Dan’s bookshop was no longer the good place it had been with TreeHugger around. Massolit was a place for CEU students and some faculty to hang out […]. We have bought books, donated books, and had their good coffee and very nice foods; there’s more of a homemade feeling to their baked stuff than most places,” Culver tells the Budapest Business Journal.

Regrettably, Culver rarely visits of late after moving house. “They generally had very cheap and naff books outside. I sort of miss it,” she adds.

As for the books, among the 4,000-5,000 in stock is a wide selection of Hungarian literature and history books in English. There is a healthy demand for Eastern European literature, while psychology, history and Jewish studies are also popular.

“The most exciting part for me [is] when we get books that are difficult to find, that our distributors don’t deal with, and I think that is why some of our customers are checking our shelves from time to time: to find these hidden treasures,” she reasons.

Intriguingly, and perhaps contrary to most peoples’ impressions of today’s youth, Pecák has detected a growing book-worm trend among younger customers in her time at Massolit.

“I’ve noticed that the younger generation, young adults in the 17-25 age group, are reading more and more and are interested in classics as well,” she says.

But after 12 years as the managing director, how long does she plan to keep going? At the mere mention of a job title, Pecák chuckles.

“Yeah, or whatever. I sign the papers when the tax office comes, [but] I don’t think Massolit is me. Massolit is the people who come and the people who work here. We all, together, create a community in a way. I’m just part of it,” she says.

And for how much longer? “While I enjoy it,” she retorts. “I’m still happy and surprised that we’re still here. Every year is a plus!”

Massolit: What’s in a Name?

In case you’re stumped about the shop’s name, it was coined by the founder, David Miller. It originates from the Soviet-style abbreviation for the “Moscow Association of Writers” in “The Master and Margarita,” the highly acclaimed novel by Mihail Bulgakov. Miller christened his first shop in Krakow, Poland and his Budapest “subsidiary” with the same name. If you are thinking in English, it also sounds something like “a mass o’ Lit[erature],” which is apt for the operation.

This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of November 29, 2024.