The Bookstore
In a college town full of cleverly named bars, The Bookstore might have been the cleverest. Opening in 1977 at the corner of College Avenue and Old Greenville Highway, The Bookstore was Clemson’s downtown disco – and despite its studious name, it was all about dancing and drinksclemsonwiki.com. Housed in the building that had once been Dan’s Restaurant (and later a Tiger Paw diner), The Bookstore featured a raised DJ booth, a decent-sized dance floor, and even a few pinball machines by the back doorclemsonwiki.com. Its tongue-in-cheek name allowed students to tell their parents with a straight face, “I’m going to the Bookstore,” when in reality they meant the bar – a running joke that many found amusing. During the height of the disco craze, The Bookstore drew crowds who came to boogie under spinning mirror balls to the latest hits of the late ’70s. However, being one of the first true college dance clubs in Clemson also made it a target for liquor control. In April 1978, The Bookstore was hit by an undercover sting and three bartenders were arrested for serving minors (the owner, Jimmy Lanford, complained in The Tiger student newspaper that it felt like entrapment)clemsonwiki.com. Despite these hurdles, the bar remained popular. By 1980-81, though, trouble loomed. The owner, Manning Garren, sadly passed away in March 1981, and after his death The Bookstore struggled – a joke circulating among students was that the bouncers were now “having to throw people in instead of out” due to dwindling patronageclemsonwiki.com. The Bookstore closed its doors in March 1981clemsonwiki.com. Not long after, an arson attempt (likely someone looking to collect insurance) caused minor fire damage to the empty building in April 1981clemsonwiki.com. That could have been the final chapter for 104 Seneca (the address for The Bookstore), but the story took a turn: the space was remodeled later in ’81 into a new mega-club called The Corporationclemsonwiki.com. After The Corporation era, it became a restaurant (Strawberry’s) and then Lester’s Tiger Den, and eventually TD’s restaurant by 1988. Though The Bookstore’s time was brief (roughly four years of operation), it lives on in Clemson lore for its memorable name and true disco-era flavor. And yes – there actually were people who went there to dance and maybe study a bit; legend says the booths occasionally had textbooks strewn among the pitchers of beer. One alumnus nostalgically remarked that The Bookstore would even cash personal checks for $10 – “my parents just thought I was buying school supplies”tigernet.com!
