McNally Jackson on Recent Law & Order

McNally Robinson Books started in Winnipeg in 1981 when bookstores were often found in malls such as Coles and WH Smith. Department stores still had large book stores. Many retailers such as Eaton's and The Bay had very active book sections even the 1980s. Some of the independent retailers for books often worked at a place like Eaton's book department before they struck out on their own. 

Mary Scorer was one such person who worked at Eaton's until when in 1959 she started her independent store under own name. Her location in Osborne Village helped kick off an era of independent retail and restaurants in that neighbourhood. She went to be a book publisher and her store went through a variety of hands locally after. The 1980s would kick off a new era of bookstores after Eaton's cut their book department.

Ron Robinson, the Robinson of MacNally Robinson, came via the Eaton's route. He had been a book buyer at Eaton's till they cut their large 25 member staff in 1980. He, and and Holly McNally would start McNally Robinson in the very recently built Kenaston Village strip mall in 1981. Initially, the McNallys scouted the traffic there, thinking about starting a business in a community that was still new to them.  Holly McNally had left her career in 1980 as a social worker to move to Winnipeg where her husband Paul had taken a position as a professor of English at University of Manitoba. The huge hole left by Eaton's cutting the book staff was the impetus for McNally and Robinson to consider going down the same route as Mary Scorer decades earlier: to build an independent bookstore. But where?

The Kenaston Village Mall was built by the Lakeview Group in 1978 on what had been scrub forest land across from the Kapyong Barracks in south River Heights. The Red Baron, built in 1979 and an original IGA grocery store brought in a lot of people. However, it was the Grapes and Peppers restaurants that really took off. Tuxedo and River Heights folks sadly lacked many restaurants in their immediate are so this appealed to many who wanted somewhere to shop as well as eat.

To the McNallys, this looked like the perfect place to start a bookstore and with Robinson in 1981. McNally Robinson Booksellers was born. 

Robinson left after a year later in 1982 and went on to a decades long career in national and local CBC Radio.  He made the initial purchase of books, got everything organized for inventory and established the contacts needed to be make the store sustainable.  The store remained McNally Robinson because it was too expensive to change the name when he left. However, it was successful enough to expand to Osborne Village in 1986 and Portage Place in 1987. Two major renovations took place at Kenaston and staff was built up accordingly.  Holly McNally ran the stores but would eventually be joined by husband Paul and her children. They all had a hand in managing over the years.

By 1988, McNally Robinson's was a must stop for authors to give readings and to visit on tour. It was only natural that the bookstore along with Manitoba Writers Guild would help fund a literary award that was the richest in western Canada. It was heady days for McNally as writers both local and national along with some international would pass through the doors every day.

In 1995, the a children's bookstore on Henderson Highway opened. This was just the beginning of the heyday of bookstores in Canada. In 1994, Cole and W.H. Smith Books were merged and superstore Chapters books began to be built. The move in Canada was to prevent U.S.-based Borders books from crossing into Canada. 

By 1996, McNally could see the writing on the wall seeing the large format stores of just over 20,000 square feet popping up on both sides of the the border. They would consolidate their Kenaston and Osborne locations at a 21,000 square foot location in the Grant Park shopping mall. It would include a restaurant called Cafe au Livre (later Prairie Ink) and a large children's section on the second floor. Enough space was given for book signings and readings. While the other stores closed the Portage Place location continued operations for several years.

The Grant Park location would be a runaway success and McNally would go onto open McNally Saskatoon in 1998. This store instantly caught on with the same format that worked so well at Grant Park. The McPhillips stores closed in favour of a wholesale division for school libraries called Skylight Books. By 2002, McNally opened a store in Calgary in a building they owned and in 2004, they opened a location in the Shops at Don Mills Toronto.

However, it would be a McNally opening outside of Canada that would surprise the most. The daughter of Holly and Paul McNally, Sarah, after schooling at McGill would find work in the New York publishing world. With an inheritance from family and knowledge of bookselling that she was born to, she opened a McNally Robinson in New York City in the Soho district in 2004. She called it McNally Robinson and it was listed as on the main site in Winnipeg as one of their stores.

In 2008, the stock market crash led to a recession throughout North America. McNally's expansion in Toronto turned into a money pit of losses. The Calgary store property was at first sold and rented but then eventually closed in 2008. By 2009/2010, Toronto and Polo Park also closed. The recession's damage dragged everything down and even auto manufacturers had to be bailed out.

After the dust settled, the only two stores to survive were Saskatoon and Winnipeg. However, the location of McNally Robinson in New York also survived. In 2008, Sarah McNally renamed the store McNally Jackson in honour of her son and and now ex-husband. She remained sole owner of the store. It was probably necessary to create some distance between the two companies because while both shared a McNally as owner, they were two different companies.

It was a tough time for the book industry as e-reader were all the rage. Book stores tried to get in the sales of these but paper and print remain the draw in stores. Huge retailers like Indigo-Chapters and Barnes and Noble struggled to stay relevant. In many cases, they resorted to selling things besides books to help with their margins. However, for both McNally Robinson and McNally Jackson, they continued to curate books, in some cases print books with their own printers. They did have other merchandise but the concentrated 

There is no doubt that Prairie Ink restaurants help McNally Robinson attract customers in the days, evenings and weekends. For McNally Jackson, it is the book clubs. Jackson also, spun off Goods for the Study which New Yorkers have taken to create worker spaces and presumably areas to read as well. Robinson created a community classroom to teach those who signed up to study in a variety of interests. Jackson publishes Jackson Editions, a select group of books for discerning readers. Robinson has been a main supporter of the publishing industry and events. Authors depend on McNally for sales and for awards.

In 2012, Holly and Paul McNally indicated they would be selling McNally Robinson in a phased sale that would be final in 2015. Other family members in the McNally family in Canada went on to other projects. Longtime employees Chris Hall and Lori Baker took over the company. The company expanded once more in 2018 with a 1000 foot store at The Forks.

Meanwhile, McNally Jackson under Sarah McNally also was going through changes. No other linked on the website to McNally Robinson, it spun off Goods for the Study, a style shop for personal spaces in 2013. By 2018, it opened a second location at Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In 2019, the third location in the South Street Seaport opened in lower Manhattan. Post Covid, they opened fourth location in Downtown Brooklyn in 2022. And finally, in 2023, they opened the largest location in 1 Rockefeller Plaza. That location was 7000 square feet and included a Goods for the Study shop. Along the way, the employees became unionized.

McNally is the third largest buyer of books in the NYC and has become part of the fabric of the city. And this brings us to McNally Jackson appearing in a caption card of NBC's flagship show Law & Order. Most of the time. the show studiously avoids naming businesses and the like. Even universities like Columbia and NYC nary a mention.  Fordham University always gets mentioned because it is not as posh as the other and require donors and money from filming. 

Now it is McNally Jackson that gets a mention. It is right across the street street from 30 Rockefeller Plaza and the Today show streets set. Every NBC reporter, performer and employee knows the store and has likely been in it. The store has become so beloved that it finally got a mention. However, it may only be people in Winnipeg who recognize the link all the way back to Winnipeg. 

So hurah for independent bookstores. May the ones named McNally live forever.