The stairway leading up to The Book & Bee Café and Tea in Hendersonville is decorated with stickers of titles like Great Expectations and Outlander. At the top, the bookish tearoom, created by mother and daughter Lesley Shipley and Victoria Cummins, awaits.

Inside, preteens, young couples, and retirees, wearing everything from floral hats to hiking duds, chat over popular dishes like Steinbeck’s Chicken Salad. The menu of daily specials — or, as they’re known here, “The Plot” — include Agatha’s Meatloaf and Mashed Potatoes, The Hobbit’s Shepherd’s Pie, and Shakespeare’s Quiche — To Meat or Not to Meat. Homemade soups vary by week, and steaming pots of tea are meant to be shared or savored with a good book.

The tearoom was a product of the pandemic. Before Covid, the family ran a student-focused travel agency, which for many years guided middle and high schoolers to England. In 2021, after flights slowed, Shipley and Cummins decided to start a café. The respite that it provided to the community turned out to be invaluable. “People would come in and say, ‘You don’t understand what it’s like to have a place like this,’” Cummins says. “To have someplace they could sit and chat, be comfortable and full of joy, was simply life-altering.”

In addition to being a Hendersonville haven, The Book & Bee introduces the community to local authors like Elle Travis, who visited last year to talk about her children’s series, Nature Connections. Children dressed as the books’ fairies packed the house, and Travis read her books aloud in each of the café’s rooms. At the end, many of the kids left clutching books, spreading a love of reading throughout Henderson County.

The Book & Bee Café and Tea
795 Mountain Road
Hendersonville, NC 28791
(828) 845-4242
thebookandbee.com