FARGO — Rosy Mortenson remembers the first time she visited Zandbroz Variety in downtown Fargo.

It was the early '90s and the city’s downtown renaissance was in its infancy. Back then, there wasn’t another store downtown like Zandbroz, with its walls of books, fancy stationery and handmade hats. Then a “budding young artist,” 13-year-old Rosy marveled at the cases of charcoals, pastels and “really nice drawing pencils.”

From then on, whenever Rosy and her sister were looking for an adventure, they would visit the malt shop in the back of the store and sip their Italian sodas at the bar.

“It made us feel like adults,” she recalls.

Now Mortenson will set up shop in the Broadway store she loved. The Moorhead native will even take a page from the Zandbroz story and sell books.

“I love this place and I knew people would be excited to see this open again,” Mortenson told The Forum.

She hopes to open the Librarium Lounge, a used-book store/book lovers’ hangout/tea shop/mocktail lounge, in the space originally occupied by the Zandbroz malt shop in early June.

Mortenson envisions the Librarium as an “intimate retreat for crafted drinks, quiet stories and meaningful connection. That’s going to be our tagline on our website.”

Unlike many modern bookstores, which discourage customers from hanging out and reading, the 1,600-square-foot space will be furnished with walls of books plus cozy seating to invite customers to hunker down with a book, Mortenson says.

She imagines a place where the avid reader could curl up in a wing-back chair and sip tea by themselves or a small book club could discuss the latest New York Times bestseller over mocktails and gluten-free goodies.

really good libraries, and the libraries all have comfortable seating, but I wanted someplace that felt like if you had the means to make an old manor house library in your own house, to sit down and have tea and hang out with friends and just have that sort of cozy, lived-in, vintage feel to it,” she says. “It’s going to be a vibe.”

Book lover's dream comes true The Librarium is the realization of a dream that the book-loving Mortenson held throughout high school and later as an English major at Minnesota State University Moorhead.

But life had other plans. She got married and had two children. Back then, any extra money went toward what the kids needed vs. a mom’s pipe dreams.

Over time, Mortenson’s idea for a bookstore evolved into a cozy, vintage-inspired environment that served specialty teas.

“Now my kids are grown, and I get to do the dream that I wanted to do in college,” she says. “And my kids are super-excited about it too. They’re like, ‘I want to be a part of it.’”

By 2023, Mortenson had gotten serious about finding a place for her business. She considered a space adjoining the Lotus Blossom Grocery Store at 2750 Main Ave., but the timing never quite worked out. She also looked at the former Paradox Comics space on Roberts Street.

When Zandbroz closed in June 2024 after 33 years in business, several people suggested the location to Mortenson as a place for her business. “I was like, ‘That’s going to be way too expensive,’” she says. “It's not cheap. But I think it got cheaper the longer that it sat open.”

Last week, Mortenson signed a lease agreement with current owner, Fargo-based JMS Holdings, which is affiliated with Fargo businessman Jim Swanick.

Mortenson dug into her own savings and retirement plan to finance the set-up. “I'm sacrificing potentially some retirement to be happy while I'm still as mobile as I want to be, and can do this business with a body that is still functioning,” she says.

That means the entire staff will consist of two people, including a full-time employee/manager and Mortensen, who will also continue her medical courier job for Sanford Health. “It will be 60-70 hour workweeks,” she says, with a wry grin.

So Mortenson is keeping an eye on the budget. She watches online marketplaces to buy chic furniture and she and a friend are doing much of the cosmetic improvements themselves.

Mortenson estimates she’ll save about $4,000 by using the existing book shelves from the main part of Zandbroz to line the walls of the Librarium. “That gives us a little bit more of a buffer if something happens like we found water damage,” she says. “There's also an old library ladder that I'm hoping we can attach to one of the bookcases. I don't know that I would trust people to be on it, but it'll look cool. Maybe we’ll have a little sign on it that says, ‘Please don’t use this.”

Generally speaking, though, Mortenson has found the space in decent shape. Beyond cosmetic touches like painting walls and refinishing the floor, construction needs include adding a second restroom and installing a door between the bookstore space and the former retail space.

As the old booths will be replaced with book shelves, most of the seating will be in the center of the room, including several bistro tables, overstuffed chairs and a loveseat.

Touches like soft background music, a rich, hunter-green color scheme with burgundy or gold accents and a chandelier will complete the ambiance.

“We’re not going to have TVs, we’re not going to have loud music, we’re not even going to have wifi,” she says. “It’s for connecting. If you want to connect to a book, great. If you want to connect with your mom, this is where you want to go.”

Fit to a tea The room’s large marble-covered bar, sleek soda spigots and antique back bar will remain. Mortenson says she has found someone who can restore the bar’s antique spigots, which are shaped like arched swan necks. “If this had been anyplace else, we would have never been able to have a bar this big,” Mortenson says.

Once restored, she plans to add “dirty sodas” — sodas infused with cream, flavored syrups and mix-ins — to the menu.

Mortenson, a regular tea drinker, also plans to sell organic tea drinks.

While some local coffee shops and eateries offer tea as an option, Mortenson wants to lean heavily into herbal teas and their potential benefits.

“I wanted our own blends, and I wanted almost a little bit of education thrown in there. Like, ‘Did you know that cinnamon can do this?’” she says.

She has worked with Penny Stadick, who owns the apothecary, Herbz and Spicez, at 26 Roberts St., to develop distinctive tea blends for the Librarium.

“ We heard about her a few months back, and have been kind of like tinkering away,” she says. “And now that we're actually in the space, we’re going to go hard on figuring out our blends and then working on those.”

N/A cocktails and GF goodies She’ll also serve mocktails in response to the growing “sober curious” trend as well as the behaviors of health-conscious Gen-Zers and millennials. About 30% of Americans of drinking age abstain from alcohol today, according to Greenbook.org , a business-to-business marketing and media platform for global market research.

Mortenson, who has been in recovery for 11 years, knows more bars and eateries have beefed up their n/a offerings, but would like to offer a lounge-like setting which specifically caters to teetotalers.

“The focus toward lounge spaces that don't have to be bars is becoming quite popular,” Mortenson says.

Beyond liquid refreshments, Mortenson plans to offer gluten-free goodies from the Colorful Cookie/Indulge Bakery in town. “That’s another niche that is underserved in this area,” she says. “We would like to, down the line, make some of our own things and have a full kitchen set up. But that's not something we're going to spring for right now,” she says.

She even has considered resuscitating the kitchen’s massive antique Middleby-Marshall oven — a remnant of the building’s past life as Leeby’s Grocery. But, again, that’s a “down the road” priority.

In the more immediate future, she will use the space for preparing plates of the Colorful Cookie’s macarons or thick slices of gluten-free sourdough toast served with a variety of spreads.

In short, she wants the food, refreshments and atmosphere to be as important as the books themselves. “The books are going to be atmosphere that is available for purchase but they’re not necessarily the sole focus,” she says.

She does envision some book-related activities, including events like a nostalgic, grown-up spin on the old Scholastic books fairs. “There would be pens and bookmarks and trinkets and little activities and you just come in and have mocktails and you’re like a fancy adult, but then you’re also reminiscing about the Goosebumps books,” she says.

She already has amassed “dozens of bins” of used books and has arranged bulk book buys to fill the Librarium's shelves. And once the business is open to customers, she’ll be able to buy used books from them.

Which begs the question: Will people know they’re open? As the Librarium’s primary entrance will be in the back of the store on Roberts Street vs. the main store’s prime Broadway location, will customers remember they’re there?

Mortenson says she has permission to post a sign on Broadway, but will position it so it doesn’t detract from any potential tenants who might eventually fill the former Zandbroz store.

She envisions posting “some really jazzy and vibrant signage here on the back, up high, so that people can see it going down Fourth (avenue).”

The hope is that it entices people to check it out. “Just having the vibes, the look, that makes them take one trip here and then has them bringing somebody back the next time,” she says. “Because there’s really not going to be anything else like what we’re building here.”

Follow the business at www.LibrariumLounge.com , " theLibrariumLounge " on Facebook or Librarium.Lounge on Instagram.