Fort Worth, Texas
Established 2008
What’s your Store History, in a nutshell?
The Dock Bookshop opened in 2008 as a family owned and operated business started by Donya and Donna Craddock. Their cousin Evelyn Hoof, who loved poetry and promoting poets in Little Rock, Arkansas, had called Donya about a need for a venue in the Dallas/ Fort Worth area. She told Donya that she was not a promoter, but that if Donya should find what she wanted to do and open a spot, she could bring poets for readings. Donya thought about Evelyn’s suggestion while driving around the community and called Donna to say “I’ve got a business we can do together, instead of what we’re doing separately”. Donya was selling real estate investor books at trade shows and Donna was helping Cokesbury on the Texas Christian University campus. They wrote a business plan and executed it with the help of Dominique, and Donya’s son Donovan — who was seven at the time but painted a lot of bookshelves, and is now a sophomore in college. Deborah Gregory became the buyer for books and side items for The Dock Bookshop.
What’s your claim to fame?
Our creativity and love of books, community and culture help us to thrive and survive in a competitive industry. We created an environment where books have a voice and experience through our book related events. We created an ambiance that allows people to share their emotions whether its personal, social, political, economic or any other condition or situation. Our goal is to continue to be a destination and once people reach us we work to meet their expectations and so they leave knowing they had a phenomenal shopping experience with extraordinary customer service. Should our customers not make it to Dallas/Fort Worth we put the same love and passion into our other forms of communication including our website, social medial and other virtual tools.
What’s a memorable customer experience?
We have so many great customer service experiences but two really stand out. Our customer and event partner, Rickie Clark, hosts educational and cultural camps and My Brother Keepers in the store. One particular camp series he had all 17 of the elementary grade students pick a book from the children’s area and had all of them line up to purchase their books. The children were so proud and grateful for the experience, and to see them hug their books was an unforgettable experience.
On another occasion at our annual Power of Love event our regular customer Reggie Campbell stood up and talked about meeting his fiancé Asia Lyons at a cultural celebration at the bookstore and the many books they read together. It was such a lovely and beautifully endearing moment it gave the Dock Family heart warming joy.