For over 20 years, Andrea Randall has made her living cutting hair. She loves it, but it’s taken a physical toll on her joints and body. When she lost her hearing, implants made everything too loud.

It was time for a change, she recalled thinking about a decade ago.

“I don’t like sound,” she said. “I was like, ‘I can’t do hair forever, but I don’t want to not do hair. What can I do where it’s quieter?’”

The answer, she realized, was that people tend not to talk when books are around. As a book lover herself, she knew opening her own used book store with a salon could be the perfect fit.

Her new business gives her the best of both worlds. B3: Beauty, Beverages, and Books at 1070 Broadway St. N.E., is part salon, part used bookstore, and offers a place to customers to unwind and explore the written word.

Non-alcoholic refreshments are available for purchase and can be enjoyed from tea cups while sitting in a cozy chair. Salem’s Origin Story Coffee cart is also parking in front of the business weekly this summer, in collaboration with the shop.

Its official grand opening weekend will be Aug. 15, but Randall’s shop already has some regulars since a soft opening last November. She particularly enjoys a group of older ladies who come in just to browse, which she said brings a good energy to the space.

Randall said she’s often told the store offers a wide selection that isn’t overwhelming or cluttered, but with treasures to be found. 

Randall graduated from Dallas High School in 2000, and had grown up enjoying trips to the library and local bookstores.

When she started sharing her idea to open her own, word of mouth led to customers leaving stacks of donated books on the reception desk of her longtime business, Andrea’s Salon De Fleur, on 12th Street in Salem. 

She accumulated thousands of books before getting her start selling books in Independence, then out of her Salem salon. Then she outgrew that space, and found a new location. 

Randall is a careful curator. She loves when customers find the book they’ve been seeking forever, a missing piece in their series or a rare version of a book they already own and love. Most books she sells are within the $3 to $15 price range.

The bookshelves are open in the back, and the rows of books are neatly arranged. The decorations are a “slightly macabre,” “Alice in Wonderland” inspired feel, she said. There are skull figurines, written jokes and book nooks: little art displays that fit between novels, waiting to be discovered.

“When I’m in the shop, I can hear people laugh as they find things. I love that, because I don’t hear much. And so I treasure the things that I can grasp,” she said.

As customers have bought books, Randall has learned more about what Salem readers are into. 

“Smut is so in right now. So I’ve actually had to hunt down boxes of smut,” she said, referring to explicit romance books. Science fiction, fantasy and horror are also flying off the shelves.

Randall has had to go out of her way to find horror books.  

“People love their horror books, and they keep them, they hoard them. So it’s hard to find them and not pay up the nose for it, because I have to turn a profit,” she said.

Randall’s also going beyond books, and working to build community. She’s already hosted a book club, pop-up used clothing shopping and a Deaf Diva Date Night, bringing deaf women together for a night of charcuterie boards and discounted shopping.

She hopes to add book-themed classes for calligraphy, wine and paint night and crafting. She also hopes to turn one of the rooms into a rentable “book immersion therapy space,” where someone can listen to a record, surrounded by books and take some time to themselves to draw or get some work done. 

Work for the business has filled Randall’s calendar. When she’s not here, she’s seeking books or repurposing furniture to add to the space, and to fill an expansion she’s hoping to acquire in the coming months. 

She’s also been networking, including at Salem’s Juneteenth celebration where she connected with other Black business owners. In between work for B3, she tries to squeeze in time to work on her own book about a serial killer.

When that work becomes overwhelming, sorting through the latest box of donations is self-care, Randall said. 

“It gets me emotional, I wish I could explain the joy and the love,” she said, tearing up and looking around at the store. “There’s only how many letters in the alphabet? And you’re surrounded by thousands of different stories and different ways to write it, and history. From 26 letters. It’s beautiful. I don’t want to die behind that hair chair, but I will gladly die under a stack of books, that’s probably how I’ll go.”

B3 is on Instagram at b3inoregon and is on Facebook. It’s open Monday, Tuesday and Thursday-Saturday from around 9 a.m. to after 6 p.m., or later. Randall may also open the store on Wednesdays and Sundays, if she’s working inside.

Contact reporter Abbey McDonald: [email protected] or 503-575-1251.

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