At a time when many people thought independent bookstores were on the decline, Scott Tynes-Miller started a new one in Charlotte. In the nearly two years since Troubadour Booksellers opened in the Sardis Crossing shopping center, he says customer support has proved him right. “I saw what I thought was a void in east Charlotte,” Tynes-Miller says. “Our opening day was huge. We have a wonderful community of folks who are very glad we’re here. It’s exciting to be part of that.”
Troubadour joins Charlotte’s oldest independent bookstore – the nearly 50-year-old Park Road Books – as one of the city’s many options to Amazon, the online bookselling behemoth But Tynes-Miller says he doesn’t view Amazon as a competitor. “It’s more of an environmental obstacle. They are everywhere (and) they’re not going away any time soon….You need to create your niche within the world where Amazon exists.“We offer a level of customer service and customer experience and customer interaction that Amazon can never recreate.” That welcoming atmosphere draws people “to shop here rather than on Amazon,” he says.
Troubadour’s welcoming atmosphere starts with the sandwich board outside, announcing upcoming book club meetings, almost every week.Inside, visitors find a cozy sitting area furnished with a used leather sofa, comfortable chairs, and an old-fashioned typewriter, with blank paper rolled and ready to go. Book lovers can type their own short stories or poems and tape them on poster boards provided.Children are welcome too, as evidenced by the colorful back corner stocked with books, toys, games, and plush pint-sized chairs. The bathroom offers a diaper-changing table and complimentary supplies.
It’s just how Tynes-Miller imagined it should be, recalling the many wonderful bookstores he’s enjoyed throughout his life. “We want to be a place where people come to meet, to spend time, to read, and to congregate. We want to be the community living room.”
Tynes-Miller, 42, moved to Charlotte in 2011, after living for four years in Chicago. A native of upstate New York, he was “bitten by the acting bug” while attending Boston University and Elmira College. Without graduating, he moved to the Windy City for its thriving theater community.“I didn’t break through in the way I was hoping to,” he says. And he eventually followed a friend to Charlotte, where found work as one of four actors in the touring company of Children’s Theater of Charlotte, then called Taradiddle Players.It meant a full-time salary with benefits and a 12-month renewable contract, unusual job security for an actor.He loved the work—and fell in love with one of the other actors, Robin Tynes, who at the same time was starting Three Bone Theater, now in its 15th season.When they married in 2018, Scott Miller and Robin Tynes merged their names, and both adopted Tynes-Miller. They have a 5-year-old daughter.
Actors in the touring company not only performed the plays, but they also put up sets, took them down, and managed the sound systems. “It was a really hard job,” he says. And after driving around the Southeast for hundreds of performances, “my body started telling me it was time to move on.”Fortunately, he found work in the development department at Children’s Theater, where he managed fundraising. He stayed for 10 years before resigning in 2024 to open Troubadour, fulfilling a longtime dream.“I don’t know when it exactly happened,” he says, about wanting to open a bookstore. “I’ve always enjoyed visiting bookstores. Whenever you go into a bookstore, it feels like a magical place. I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to create something like that.” It had never felt like the right time until the Covid 19 pandemic in 2020 “when everyone was kind of reevaluating their lives.”“I started thinking about it more actively and talking about it with my wife and some friends. Everyone was very excited and encouraging.”
Despite the widespread impression that bricks-and-mortar bookstores are on the decline, “it was not the case at that time and is not the case now,” Tynes-Miller says. Over the last five years, the number of independent bookstores in the U.S. jumped by 70 percent, according to the American Booksellers Association. In 2025 alone, 422 new bookstores opened, a 31 percent rise from the year before.Troubadour is one of several indie bookstores that have opened in the Charlotte area in recent years. They include Belmont Bookshop in Belmont; Cleary’s Bookstore in Mount Holly; Fred and June’s Books in Mooresville and Denver; Goldberry Books in Concord; Editions Coffee Shop and Bookstore in Kannapolis, That’s Novel Books in Camp North End, and Trope Bookshop selling romance novels in a Plaza Midwood.
Troubadour has already attracted many fans and plays host to 10 book clubs each month. Some clubs just use the store to hold their meetings. Other clubs are moderated and curated by Tynes-Miller or one of his five part-time booksellers.He and his employees, all avid readers, try to collectively read most of the books they carry so they can answer customers’ questions.Tynes-Miller reads about 20 to 30 books a year, not as many as he would like. “I’ve always been a deliberate reader. I like to savor books.”After researching many stores, he made the conscious decision to stock only new books. “We carry a little bit of everything. Our focus is on critically acclaimed adult fiction and children’s books.”
Since opening, the selection has shifted more to genre fiction, a reaction to customer interest. “Romance. Romantasy. Fantasy. Sci-Fi. Horror. Those are all very popular. Romantasy is really the hot genre right now,” Tynes-Miller said.Three of the book clubs that meet at Troubadour focus on horror. “It has become a very popular genre for us.”As a result, he’s trying to read more of the popular books. Recently, he read Buffalo Hunter Hunter, a New York Times bestseller and a 2025 Barack Obama Summer Read by Stephen Graham Jones.“I was not much of a horror reader for much of my life. But I have grown a great appreciation for it. I try to read a little bit of everything.”
Tynes-Miller says he chose the name Troubadour as “a little bit of an homage to my past life, being touring actor.” But it can mean a lot of things, he says. “I like the idea of art being mobile and transferable. That book goes out into the world. It could be donated or sold or gifted. It could end up on the other side of the planet. There is also the journey that people take whenever they read. The metaphor can go as far as you want it to.”
Reach Troubadour Booksellers, (704)443-7076, https://troubadourbooksellers.com.
Karen Garloch will discuss her debut novel, Stray Voltage, at Troubadour Booksellers, 1721-7C Sardis Road N, on Oct. 20 at 7 p.m. The event will be moderated by owner Scott Tynes-Miller.
Karen Garloch spent forty-five years as a newspaper reporter in Ohio and North Carolina, including thirty years at the Charlotte Observer, where she was a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Local Reporting. Her debut novel, Stray Voltage, won the 2024 Petrichor Prize for Finely Crafted Fiction from Regal House Publishing. A native of Indiana, she graduated from Ball State University, where she is a member of the Journalism Hall of Fame. She and her husband live in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Leave a Reply