Local book worms lined up outside Dymocks at Westfield Penrith for its grand opening on Friday, November 22.
The Dymocks franchise has been serving Australians for over 140 years, first opening in Sydney in 1861.
The Penrith store had been bookmarked for six months, and store owner Faz Kamal said since opening, he’s enjoyed customising his clients’ book-buying experiences.
“I wouldn’t shop anywhere other than Dymocks,” Kamal explained.
“The shopping experience is really amazing.”
Dymocks CEO Mark Newman was in attendance for the grand opening to witness the new chapter.
“We’re fundamentally a franchise business, Faz is a franchise owner, and what we believe is that people who own and operate their own businesses and run their own bookshops are much more engaged with their local community, are much more engaged with their customers, and deliver a much better service to customers than more corporate organisations,” Newman said.
Unlike a department store, Dymocks has a loyal customer base because they specialise in selling books.
“You can come into this store here and you can order any book that you’ve ever heard of that’s currently in print, and even some stuff that’s out of print we can print on demand as well,” Newman explained.
“If you come in and you’re looking for a gift for somebody or something for yourself, you can talk about things you like, authors that you’ve read beforehand, and we can give you recommendations based on those.”
This isn’t the first edition of a Penrith Dymocks, the previous one closing its doors in 2021 after selling thousands of books over 31 years.
“We’re excited as a company to be back here,” Newman said.
“We had a short period of a few years where we didn’t have a store… We’re very excited to be back in Penrith and serving the local community.”
Ally Hall
Ally Hall joined the Weekender in 2024, and focuses on entertainment and community stories. She's a graduate of the University of South Australia and has previously worked as a Video Journalist with Southern Cross Austereo and as a News Reader with Australian Radio Network.