Webster’s Bookstore Café Downtown

Webster’s Bookstore Café is a general used bookstore stocking over 100,000 titles in our inventory, with large holdings in fiction and literature, history, literary criticism, science fiction and fantasy, and vintage paperbacks. We offer a full line of coffee and espresso drinks, teas, and delicious desserts. Our café serves shade-grown, organic Fair Trade coffees, Metropolitan teas and Sweet Indulgence desserts. We deal with local vendors whenever possible, but look for similar standards of environmental and community concern in choosing our other vendors, as well.

Webster’s is the proud inheritor of a long line of State College used bookshops. Founded in 1974 as Book Swap on Fraser Street, we became Seven Mountains Books in 1993 on Pugh Street. Webster’s moved to our current location on Allen Street in June of 1999, adding the café and doubling the size of the bookstore. The store was renamed Webster’s Bookstore Café at that time.

Webster’s on Aaron

In 2007, Elaine Meder-Wilgus and her husband Bill became the majority stockholders of Webster’s. With the help of family and a few close friends, Elaine has opened up a second cafe’ on Aaron Drive in State College.

The new location is strictly a cafe’ (but books are certainly allowed! “BYOB”). Elaine has tapped State High alums and friends Morgen Hummel and Gretchen Smith to be Manager and Food Manager at the new location. (We told you we were local!) Captain Bli (Jeff Brendle) will continue to make his amazing soups for the two cafes, and April Meyers’ Enchanted Kitchen will continue to provide sustaining, wholesome, and delicious raw food options. Our goal is a simple one: provide good, real food, prepared fresh with local and organic products whenever possible. Having to eat meals away from home shouldn’t be a life-shortening experience. Think of Webster’s as your kitchen away from home, stocked with life-sustaining foods that you can feel good about eating.