KNOXVILLE, Tenn — A Knoxville woman is opening the first black owned coffee shop in the city. Mis Amores Bookshop Cafe also serves as a romance novel book store, with an emphasis on titles involving marginalized communities.

Anaika Anderson, better known as Anya, was born in the Dominican Republic and Spanish is her first language. She identifies as an Afro-Latina. She said it took her five years to learn English and reading helped her learn the language. Now she wants her bookshop to be a safe space for all.

“It’s very exciting and I think it’s beautiful because I plan on having like books with different languages and stuff like that so hopefully people can pick up a book in their own language and they can fall in love with reading, too,” said Anderson.

The bookshop cafe was born out of grief and a love of reading. Anderson said one of her children died two years ago and she was feeling very lost. She said she was reading the book “Consider Me” by Becka Mack and the male main character was the go-to guy for all of his friends and she related to his character. 

She said in the book, he’d talk about his view from home being the Canadian Rockies and how he’d feel at peace and he can be himself and breathe. She told her husband she wanted that feeling so their family took a road trip through Georgia to Tennessee, where they stayed at a cabin in the Smokies. She said she fell in love with the area, and a year later her husband got a job offer here and the family moved.

Anderson said East Tennessee was a culture shock from Central Florida, and she searched for a space where she belonged. She said it came at a time where immigrants were being targeted and tracked, and that’s still going on today.

“It made me miss home because it made me feel like I couldn’t go back home. I hated that feeling and I hated turning on the news and seeing people like myself being targeted and hunted down,” said Anderson.

Anderson said she didn’t have the best life growing up and she knew if she survived, she wanted to create a safe haven for women and children. Now she said she’s creating a safe haven through her romance bookstore.

“I bring forth romance books specifically, I prioritize books of marginalized communities, so queer BIPOC, as well as disabled, those are like the front runners. It’s like manifestation, but it is something that I craved so much when I was little and to be able to have people walk in and see themselves represented in the book covers and in the pages and feel like they don’t have to hide the little pieces that make them magic,” said Anderson.

And though the store isn’t open yet, she has big plans for the future. She said she wants to do classes that let people pay what they can for lessons in English, Spanish, and American Sign Language. She also wants to have her coffee shop proceeds go to school lunch debt for students. She added, when her business is stable, she wants to provide one day a month where people can come and get fed.

The bookstore officially opens next Saturday, October 11. The shop is located at 5331 Central Avenue Pike in Knoxville.

Anderson said she’s honored to be the first Black-owned coffee shop in Knoxville.

“I don’t want to take somebody else’s shine away from them, but it feels huge, monumental, and it’s a lot of pressure. I hope that I can bring honor to our culture and to our community and then also pave the way for other individuals like myself, and I think this is just the beginning. I think that black owned businesses are gonna continue to grow in Knoxville, and I cannot wait to see them,” said Anderson.