Lake City Books

Lake City Books: Bringing a bookstore back to downtown Madison

When avid reader Molly Fish grew up in Madison and attended East High School, downtown was a reader’s paradise. 

“I grew up with all the great bookstores downtown in the nineties,” she says. “Canterbury Books was a huge part of my life and the culture of my childhood, and I could list ten bookstores we used to go to downtown.”

As an undergraduate at UW-Madison in the early 2000s, Fish worked at the UW bookstore on Library Mall. Those were the days when the store sold general books, in addition to its textbook basement, and Fish fondly recalls working at a Harry Potter midnight release event at the store.

“I loved working in a bookstore and the excitement of being part of a bustling business,” she says. 

When she graduated from UW-Madison with a degree in international studies and a certificate in business economics, Fish moved to Chicago, where she worked at Beck’s Bookstore, a family-owned college textbook store with nine locations on campuses around Chicago. Fish began as a cashier at the Loyola University location and became the store manager within nine months. 

“I got to lean into my natural leadership and project management abilities,” Fish says. “It was my first real post-college job experience, and I loved it.” 

Fish gained an appreciation of how small businesses can try new things, without having to answer to a corporate manager. 

“I loved everything about managing people and working with college students,” she says. “I love small businesses.” 

When she decided to move back to Madison, Fish applied to graduate school at UW-Madison and to Epic. 

“I had fallen in love with business and wanted to learn more about it,” she says. “I was faced with a choice of learning about business on the job, while collecting a paycheck, or spending money to go to business school.”

Learning business skills on the job and finding the SBDC

Epic won out–Fish accepted a job as a Quality Assurance team lead and quickly moved into a role as a project and people manager. That’s where she was introduced to the UW-Madison Small Business Development Center (SBDC).

“Epic invests in their managers, and they partner with the SBDC on programming for managers,” Fish explains. “Epic brings in experts from the SBDC to teach classes, and employees can go to the SBDC in evenings and take classes. I took classes on delegation, communication, and management.”

Fish says Epic was a great training ground for her. 

“I was saving money, learning to manage higher stakes projects, and upping my spreadsheet game,” she says. “I got to practice being a business owner by running small teams.”

Fish still wanted to work in the book industry, so in 2019, while she was still at Epic, she took the SBDC’s six-week Biz Smart Sprint course to think about how she might open her own bookstore. 

“I had a few ideas and wanted to talk to people about them, so I could force myself to think about it in a more real way,” she says. “It was valuable to learn the terminology and get advice before I needed it, rather than after. I always tell people, if you’re interested, take those SBDC courses. It made me excited.”

Fish found herself fascinated by insurance and bookkeeping. 

“I love that stuff–I do my own books,” she says. “I love reporting, digging into P&L [Profit & Loss] and thinking about the most profitable areas of my business. I’m really hands-on. What I learned during Biz Smart Sprint affirmed this was the right path for me. I needed to start a business.”

SBDC Program Manager Heather Ferguson, who runs Biz Smart Sprint, suggested resources for Fish to explore after the program.

“Heather was such a great, helpful contact,” Fish says. “She gave me ideas for other things to explore that made me so excited. She helped push me.” 

Practicing skills in the field

SBDC business consultants often encourage prospective entrepreneurs to work in the industry of their business before they start their own company, to get the lay of the land, and Fish took that to heart. 

“I ended up deciding to help someone else run their bookstore, to practice more before launching my own, and I partnered with the owner of Leopold’s Books Bar Caffe in 2021,” she says. “I cold-called him and said, ‘I want to learn more, I’ve run bookstores, and do you want me to run yours?’, and he said yes! It was an unconventional way to get a job and start something.” 

Fish handled the bookstore launch, setting up the bookstore space, running events, and helping with bookkeeping. 

Starting the downtown Madison bookstore

Downtown Madison had no bookstores left when Fish launched Lake City Books.

“Madison is a cool town, and I wanted my bookstore to be a Madison thing,” Fish says. “The Lake City Books concept is dedicated to Madison.” 

Fish purchased 20 domain names and wrote four different business plans before she landed upon the right formula for Lake City Books. 

“You don’t stumble onto it,” she says. “You’ve got to workshop things ‘til you get to the right fit. I feel really lucky that it has worked out. Now, it feels really meant to be that I’m running the Madison downtown bookstore, and it’s growing, but it was a long, winding road to get here.” 

Throughout her nine years at Epic, Fish saved money to open her own business. When she decided to make the leap, her family matched the funds she’d saved with a private loan that she was able to pay back within her first nine months of opening. Having learned from her SBDC training to start slow and keep expenses low at first, since early sales can be unpredictable, Fish hoped to break even over the years and was heartened to do so in her first year. 

“In the interest of starting small, I only signed a four-year lease when I started,” she says. “I broke even my first year and have been profitable every year. I pay my staff and myself and put the rest of the profits back into the business.”

Fish was able to hire additional staff in her first six months and now has two full-time and three part-time employees. She tracks her sales numbers to decide where to invest in the business. For example, she initially thought author events and private events would be popular, but it’s book clubs that customers are clamoring for.

“Book clubs are where we have the most engagement and sales, so we ramped that up and don’t host as many events,” Fish says. “It has been helpful to try things and see what takes off.” 

In the fall of 2025, two and a half years in, Lake City Books was growing consistently, cramming book clubs into the space and packed to the gills during Saturday’s Dane County Farmer’s Market.

“I started looking around downtown and talking to landlords, and I found a vacant ULI-owned space, and they were very excited about the prospect of having me move in this year,” Fish says. “We worked it out, and it snowballed into moving this summer and closing our first location a year earlier, so we negotiated a lease buyout with ULI.” 

The new space is double the size of the existing space and already has a state-of-the-art bar buildout. 

“We wanted to keep it and add an additional revenue stream, so I consulted with Andrea Hillsey of Square Wine Company to curate a wine bar,” Fish says. “Everyone wants downtown to be a thriving place. We can stay open later and host author events and casual community events, like puzzle nights, movie nights, trivia, and poetry. Reading can be so solitary, and people want to be in community with other bookish people.”

In her SBDC courses, Fish learned to give customers reasons to return to your business, and she sees the wine bar as a way to do that. She already sells both used and new books and gives customers credit for trading in gently used books, to bring them back. Another draw is likely Fish’s dog Bowie, a Great Pyrenees Husky mix who  is regularly in the store.

“The SBDC’s free resources are incredible, and I’ve used them and my market research skills consistently,” Fish says. “The SBDC has been helpful for big picture thinking and has given me tools to handle details and execution.”

Community Partnerships 

Fish credits a host of community partnerships with the store’s rapid success. 

The Wisconsin Book Festival and Madison Public Library Foundation operate out of the Central Library two blocks from the store and have included Lake City Books as one of their rotating bookstore partners for big events and authors.

“That has gotten us lots of exposure to readers in Madison–and sales, too,” Fish says. “It also puts us in front of big authors.”

Fish performed in shows at Children’s Theater of Madison growing up and has known Artistic Director Brian Cowing for years. Lake City Books is a season sponsor and partners with the theater to sell books in the Overture Center and MYarts Center on performance days. 

“They did a season of literary-themed kids’ plays–Matilda, A Christmas Carol, Elephant and Piggie–and then sold our books after the show,” Fish says. “That’s gotten families familiar with us and generated additional sales revenue.”

Fish is on Destination Madison’s Foundation Board of Trustees and partner committee, supporting the organization’s mission to bring people to downtown Madison and show them how wonderful it is. 

“Lake City Books is the quintessential Madison bookstore–everything is lake and Madison themed–and they’ve been a great partner for marketing and events,” says Fish. 

Fish appreciates all the organizations that bring people downtown, and Lake City Books is a member of the Madison Chamber of Commerce. 

“Downtown Madison Inc., the Central Business Improvement District, the Madison Night Market, Jazz at Five on the Square, Concerts on the Square–things that bring people downtown benefit us, and we get to give back to those organizations by spreading the word,” Fish says. “I love all our downtown partners.”

Envisioning the future

Fish signed a ten-year lease for her new space and hopes to stay in that location for good.

“It’s a fantastic location, and future Madison ideas, like an Amtrak station potentially on West Wilson, and the Madison LakeWay project, will really increase foot traffic down to the lake by our new location,” she says. “That corner has so much future opportunity for building up our business and all the businesses there. I see a really great future for Madison.” 

Fish is open to multiple Lake City Books locations in the future, or specialty shops like a children’s bookstore, a used bookstore, or a space on State Street or in a different city. 

“I’m going to keep doing what I’ve been doing: follow the revenue, and follow our customers’ lead to what people want,” Fish says. “I heard this in my SBDC class, and I get it now: You’re building your business in your head, setting up the space, and once you open those doors, it’s not yours anymore. It’s the community’s, and you now work for them. They will come if you have what they want. Follow what they want and walk the line of staying true to yourself, and build something authentic.”