About This Venue

An independent bookshop based in Edinburgh’s seaside community of Portobello.

The Portobello Bookshop is located in what was formerly a fishing tackle shop (Mike’s Tackle Shop) for 30 years, and before that was an old cooperative — something they discovered after removing the frontage of the tackle shop.

Extensive renovations took place from January 2019 to June 2019, during which time they discovered the lovely columns that are now a staple of the shop’s interior, which were hiding beneath plasterboard walls. Their aim was to create a warm, modern, open space that’s welcoming and pleasure to spend time browsing books in, and which allows them to host a great events programme.

The bookshop opened in July 2019 and, whilst their first couple of years were extremely different from what they had anticipated, they are glad to have made it through a global pandemic and are looking forward to many more years of bookselling.

They’re a general bookshop so stock all kinds of fiction and non-fiction. The staff are passionate and experienced booksellers who put a lot of love and time into curating their stock, ensuring they bring customers what they feel is an original, diverse and lovely selection of books across most genres.