Harvard Book Store to open Boston location near Faneuil Hall

Harvard Book Store plans to expand beyond its longtime Harvard Square home with the opening of a new bookstore in downtown Boston later this year.

The independent bookseller announced Monday that it will open a 3,500-square-foot store at 33 Union Street (located in the historic Yankee Publishing building) near Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market. Construction is already underway, with the new location expected to welcome customers this fall.

The Boston store will offer books, gifts, a dedicated children’s section and space for author events and community programming. A 1,500-square-foot café operated by Lakon Paris Patisserie will adjoin the bookstore.

“We are delighted to bring Harvard Book Store to Boston, while continuing our long tradition of independent bookselling, author talks, and community engagement at our flagship store in Harvard Square,” Lisa Jayne, general manager of Harvard Book Store, said in a news release.

Jayne said the company hopes to build on Boston’s existing literary culture by offering the same programming and customer experience that have made its Cambridge location a destination for readers and writers.

A spokesperson for Lakon Paris Patisserie said the new café will introduce exclusive menu offerings created specifically for the Boston location while maintaining the bakery’s signature approach to pastry-making, according to the release. Lakon Paris Patisserie currently has location in Boston’s Brighton and Seaport neighborhoods, as well as in Brookline and Newton. 

The building sits within Boston’s Blackstone Block, widely recognized as the city’s oldest commercial district, according to the building’s owners, Cypress Realty Group.

The Boston opening marks Harvard Book Store’s second attempt in recent years to establish a major presence outside Cambridge. In 2022, the independent bookseller announced plans for a nearly 30,000-square-foot store in the Prudential Center.

However, the company abandoned those plans in February 2024 after a series of delays and supply-chain disruptions tied to the Covid-19 pandemic. At the time, Harvard Book Store said it would focus instead on improving its flagship Harvard Square location.

Annie Jonas is a Community writer at Boston.com. She was previously a local editor at Patch and a freelancer at the Financial Times.