I absolutely love going to Barnes and Noble to peruse new titles, look at the beautiful journals, check out the games, and more. You can find local interest items as well. There is a great variety in prices, so if you are looking for a gift or something for a set price, this is an easy source to utilize. The only downside is the customer service at Barnes and Noble. It may be that I always visit when they are busy, but the staff never go out of their way to help, don't seek to care if you find what you are looking for, I have stood at the "customer service" desk several times and had the person at the desk completely ignore me. They didn't even offer an, "I'll be right with you." One even walked away to do something while I was standing there. Wow. All in all, I will still visit for my book needs, but I never expect good servic read more

I've been to Book Stores ALL my life. Naturally born book worm. Ive frequented SO many B & Ns I should get compensation. jk but I really wanted to say SLO Barnes & Noble? Is where it's at!! Nestled in the beautiful heart of downtown SLO only a stones throw from other thriving businesses, beautiful architecture, great restaurants/eateries and right there next to ALL of the awesomeness? Barnes & Noble SLO. Love this bookstore! Feels like stepping into an exclusive hidden world of awesome stationary, music, books, and just about anything you can imagine for the wee ones. Should you be traveling? & need to grab some slime, or a lego kit, cards to play. Something for everyone here. Including the book worm sig other who mayn't be that into just books. Love this little nook of magic! read more

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I was able to find free 30 minute parking in front of the post office! They have a good selection of books for 12-15 year olds, which is what I needed. My only issue was in knowing where to look since it was my first time in this store, and I couldn't find anyone who seemed to work there to ask. The lone cashier was very helpful and friendly, but busy because 4 people went to check out all at the same time. All in all, a good visit. read more

Very clean and well organized store with 2 stories of books. The staff are super nice and helpful. The atmosphere has a library feel to it with seating all around. Nice place to relax and find your next great story. read more

This is the coolest Barnes & Noble I've ever been to! We are visiting in the area, and decided to do a bit of shopping. I love going to bookstores, especially Barnes & Noble, so this looked like a good spot to go to. They put the gorgeous, sprayed edge books right in the front, which is dangerous lol. If you like collecting the books with the colorful edges, then right at front is where you'll find most of them. I like that they are also randomly found throughout the shelves with the regular editions. They have a great variety of books in each section. My friend and I spent a good amount of time perusing the fantasy and romance section, and found some great finds. They also have a kids section up stairs, which is pretty large. They really have something here for everyone. I definitely recommend stopping by this store if you're in the area, it's well worth it. read more

I'm not sure if all Barnes and Nobles are like this but having a coffee shop, magazine browsing section, 2 floors, and a new books section right at the front is so nice I have loved going here and browsing since I was a kid. Wish their was a guide right at the front to where all the sections were so I don't have to browse the whole store for it. Also love the huge manga section wow it's HUGE, if I ever want to pick up a series I know where to go. read more

Dont know if someone was crop dusting the front entry but man, I have smelt less poo in the porta potty at a Dead show. Soul crushing stench. We shopped for a bit, ran out to the parking meter and came back - and the smell was still there. The rest of the store was fine, clean, well organized, and easy to navigate. read more

I love coming here just to relax for a few after or before shopping and look around at all the new series there are.

Each section is well shelved. The Starbucks, restroom and kids area are next to each other upstairs for convenience. FYI: The escalator only goes up and stairs down. We were able to score buy one get one 50%off books. They also had blind date with a book section which is fun! read more

Barnes & Noble - Upstairs and down - Bookstores Near Me - San Luis Obispo, California

Have you ever notice how stress disappears when you lose yourself in a good read? So if you're looking for a way to de-stress, grab a book and let your mind forget about your problems for a while. Reading brings out emotions and it allows the brain to stay active. We are all suffering (one way or another) with all the trouncing mess Covid19 has brought into our life, therefore any sense of normality is a blessing. And for me finding a book brings back memories of the OLD DAYS of spending hours at Barns & Noble, reading a book drinking a hot tea. read more

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Liana provided excellent customer service and helped my wife choose a book for her book clubn. Great job read more

Barnes & Noble - Bookstores Near Me - San Luis Obispo, California

It's comforting that the old fashioned bookstores with an in house cafe still does business and can hopefully turn a profit. I didn't need to buy a book but couldn't resist going inside, mainly for nostalgia. Pretty much everything is as I remember it, beautiful rows and rows of shelves of well organized titles, the spines colorful, with front facing covers, as in the case of recently released stuff, the genres of fiction laid out. The sellers great T their job when my husband asked about a history of music title and though they didn't have it, pointed us to a section which she thought might help. The location is central to SLO and they occupy a pretty big size retail space which I hope they'll be around for a long time. read more

Gabby was very helpful in locating the books I was looking for. Professional, efficient but also warm and funny! I enjoyed talking with her. read more

Probably my worst addiction is books, but then that's pretty harmless, and my love of reading them has given me a couple of careers. I love great big art books with luscious pictures, and itty bitty poetry books. Cookbooks and travel books and novels and history books all add to the way I experience the world. Barnes and Noble has it all. You can find what you want here from how to tidy a house, to a 365 page a day calendar, to a puzzle book, or an origami book full of origami paper for making folded paper animals. I've learned a lot perusing these shelves, and I have ordered many books for work and for play. I do love the door a book opens to the world, and the people at this store ill leave you alone and let you look, or help you find just the book you want. It's also a great meet-up spot, with the small Starbucks upstairs with a view of the courtyard of the Downtown Center. It's a fun fixture in San Luis and a landmark that kind of represents this college community. read more

Barnes & Noble - Barnes and Noble - Bookstores Near Me - San Luis Obispo, California

Dream slash Milestone achieved! Thanks to the incredible support from Sandra & her amazing crew at Barnes & Noble SLO, DisHarmony is now featured and available in store! In its debut, I have signed limited copies!! Go check it out! Plus this store is absolutely fantastic! Thank you Barnes & Noble! #supportlocalauthors read more

Barnes & Noble - Outdoor entrance of Barnes & Noble SLO - Bookstores Near Me - San Luis Obispo, California

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I love all bookstores because they are full of readers. I love Barnes because it has everything I want. A great selection!! They are always helpful, and the prices are within reason. read more

Incredibly Helpful Staff! Always Tidy, When Departments are moved they all still work cohesively, They never don't have a popular or reference book you're looking for! Great Climate Control! You can tell management is doing a great job with training and maintenance! There's plenty of safe space for families to browse and spend a little bit of time. read more

Only business who carries my e-reader. Most staff in store very helpful, one was rude. Stores location is a deterrent as locating parking difficult and expensive as it is downtown San Luis Obispo. read more

Great small/medium bookstore with committed and knowledgeable employees. A nice balance in selection with Phoenix Books bookending the town for all of your reading needs. Recommend the membership program to increase value. read more

LOVE this Bookstore. Right smack dab in the middle of downtown SLO... It is so lovely to be at this huge bookstore and not have to be in suburban box store land! As you wander through the well organized bookshelves, big windows give you view of street below and and surrounding landscape. Very spacious feeling. There has always been an employee close by if I needed assistance. They directed me in a clear, helpful way but I did not feel suffocated. Selection is marvelous. I really like the small tables focused on a theme or sale. Children's area is wonderful and bountiful with books, puppets, and all sorts of fun things. Multitude of magazines. You really could be here all day...and I would dare you not to come out without a stack of books and cool gifts. An elegant Starbucks cafe is upstairs with delicious deserts. Great place to get notebooks too. read more

I've been to many BN stores around the country and this may be the worst (at least in terms of selection). I know it's a relatively small store but they seem to be loth to stock all but the most obviously popular new paperbacks, particularly nonfiction. I check every week and new paperbacks available at just about every other BN in southern and central CA are not on the shelves in SLO. When I lived in the San Fernando Valley, I bought a book at the Calabasas or Thousand Oaks store almost every week. I'll be lucky to do it once a month at SLO. This is a college town and there's no reason why they can't have a reasonably imaginative ordering policy. read more

Very nice Barnes and Nobel. It's a two story one with an elevator. Cafe is on the second floor. They also have an escalator and stairs (which I fell on, and a very sweet employee with blue hair asked me if I was okay). This sounds dumb but there's cool graffiti in the upstairs women's bathroom. Great clearance section. The only reason I give it four stars is because the entrance isn't on the street (where you think it would be for a building on the corner). There's only an emergency exit from the street. You need to walk into a little plaza past the Jamba Juice. read more

Barnes & Noble - skull graffiti - Bookstores Near Me - San Luis Obispo, California

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Not sure what happened to this place. Book shelves are dusty and dirty. Staircase was filthy. Bathroom is nasty. Super gross.

Great selection and friendly staff. Good environment and vibes. Would highly recommend!

They keep kicking me and my friends out for one little thing, today me and my friend were sitting at the table and they kicked us out. They are always rude to people and give people attitude. DON'T COME HERE read more

Came here for some books which they were out of. No big deal but there was only 1 employee walking around helping people. So it took a while to get help. Line was super long with four registers empty. They do have a band playing outside which is pretty cool. Unisex bathrooms and two stories with an escalator and an elevator for those who have a hard time going up stairs which is nice. read more

Barnes & Noble - Bookstores Near Me - San Luis Obispo, California

I had an hour to kill one afternoon and was glad to chance upon Barnes and Noble. Spent the hour browsing this clean and well organized store and found some good books. Left feeling happier that I had invested in some good reading material and helping out a book store chain...we need more of them. read more

Wow, where to start. This place used to be such a pleasure to shop at. The last few times I've stopped in have found the place a mess. Barnes & Noble is obviously short staffed. The magazine racks are a mess, the book shelves are a mess and the bathrooms were FILTHY. I didn't order anything from the coffee shop upstairs because I was worried it would be equally gross. It took several minutes of walking around before I even found an employee to talk to. The young man was very helpful and had good recommendations for me but as far as I could tell he was the only other person working there besides the person at the cash register. It's a huge store! No wonder everything was such a mess. Barnes & Noble what are you thinking??? Maybe it's new management but in the last year or so B&N has gone from a favorite spot to someplace I never want to visit again. It's too bad. Whoever is in charge should be ashamed of themselves. read more

Barnes & Noble - The elevator hasn't been inspected since 2013. Use at your own risk. - Bookstores Near Me - San Luis Obispo, California

I ordered a book on Amazon and it wasn't coming in time, so I went online to see if the San Luis Obispo Barnes & Noble had it - they had 7 copies! Barnes & Noble is located in downtown San Luis Obispo, right by the movie theater, so it's in a convenient location. There is metered parking around the store, a parking garage across the street (first hour is free) or there's free parking a few streets away (everything is walking distance around there). Someone helped me out right away to find the book! There's also a cafe inside so a lot of people were hanging out in the bookstore. read more

I love Barnes & Noble and we usually get all our books from here. There's nothing I hate the most than managers being entitled and rude towards their own team members, and even worse, in front of all customers. I was not the customer needing assistance, but it definitely affected our experience. The staff member was being super patience, doing her best to assist the customer. The manager was the total opposite. I would make sure to provide feedback to that manager working tonight Monday 12/7/2018 at 7:30PM PST. I'm totally Disappointed. read more

There's no other feeling like waltzing into a Barnes & Noble and smelling that new book smell. I love going to book stores, but especially love this particular B&N. why must you ask? Well let me tell you, it's TWO stories tall. Seriously, what book lover wouldn't want to come here? The staff is very knowledgeable and helpful. The manager had taken the time to walk around the store chatting with customers about potential interests or categories of books they were interested. He made his way over to me, to make sure I had found the correct section I was looking for. I was happily surprised to have had someone come up to me, let alone the manager to make sure I was finding everything okay -- that doesn't happen too often in the retail world. Anyway, this place is amazing. They have any kind of section you can think of, tons and tons of books, magazines, maps, kids books, etc. you name it. I have yet to experience the cafe, that's on my to do list next go around. Overall, great place, wonderful and knowledgeable staff, a true book lovers paradise. read more

There was a worker there who completely ruined the day of my friends and I. We were simply looking through some books and moving them around to view the options when this worker comes up and says "I know we all have opinions but it makes our job harder if you're moving and hiding books". We stared at him for a second and then finally agreed so he would go away. We place back the books in perfect order and proceeded to leave from feeling uncomfortable as he was peeking around corners to watch us. As we were leaving, we spotted him staring at us creepily and rearranging the books that we fixed... literally pointing out the point that he's choosing to spend more time on this than necessary. Also, escalators were broken, so... read more

I do love to read, and I love to shop. So you'd think that B&N would be the perfect fit, right? Well, in addition to the aforementioned loves, I also love to not spend more than I need to. You see where this is going? Stay with me... While I do often come here to browse and then buy the same thing for 50% cheaper from Amazon, I do still come here to buy. They often times do have book prices comparable to Amazon, and when that happens I buy here. I don't, and neither should you, feel bad about not supporting them all the time, because they, like Amazon, are not local businesses. And if you want to make buying decisions about how to keep your business local, the B&N vs. Amazon debate is a moot point. Moving on... So the store is always clean up stairs, and the selection seems to always be reflective of what most people tend to want. From manga, to WWII history it seems to all be here, which is nice. They still have a good travel section I enjoy, and the games and puzzles, as well as adult coloring books and crossword puzzles are an easy pick-up when you're in need of a quick gift or some inspiration. The front area leading to the register is always a bit of a mess and makes it feel like the store is throwing every last bit it has at you in a desperate attempt to get you to buy just, one, more, thing... that's annoying. But the employees are nice. So...yea. It's Barnes & Noble, and while it's a dying breed, this one is holding on without feeling too desperae, even while it refuses as a corporate entity to really be competitive with Amazon. But if you like a physcial hand held book today, it's a great option. read more

I was just looking at some kids jokes and then some guy working there was lingering around where I was and is looking for a book by me and says "oh here it is, I think you'll like this very much" and then he handed me an erotic feminist novel and it was extremely inappropriate and made me uncomfy. read more

What can I say about this book store except if you love to read books this is the place to go - although I buy books on line - there is still something special and enjoyable to be able to browse through massive shelves of books and causality spend a afternoon in a clean book store. Of course there is a coffee shop in the store for a bit of a a nice drink and perhaps a pastry as you spend a relaxing afternoon in this modern clean bookstore read more

This place is always great and the cafe is nice. The staff is friendly and helpful. Trevor helped me pick out a book but was very knowledgeable on books. Parking is across the street. read more

I would never buy a book from Barnes and Noble, I had to punch myself, because I almost succumbed. I saw the coffee table book of Yoshitaka Amano's Coffin: The Art Of Vampire Hunter D. It was 60$ or some shit. Beautiful too. Then the switch in my head went off. "Amazon has it for more than half off, wait a while." When I got home and checked, BAM, it was 26$. YES! 4 stars, because I like the layout of the place. They have the cash to make it look really nice--that goes a long way for me. read more

The staff members here have gone out of their way to be helpful. When I wanted to buy a boxed set of George R.R. Martin paperbacks but pointed out I could get them cheaper online, the manager offered to order them for us through the bookstore. That way, the store got credit, the tax dollars stayed local and we got the lower price. It was a win-win for everyone. Then, when we were considering buying a Nook, two staff members on separate occasions spent a good deal of time showing us the ins and outs of the device to ensure we knew what we were considering. The staff members here have been uniformly friendly and helpful. read more

Whenever passing through SLO, we always stop off for an hour or two to let our kids run around, read stories and generally decompress from all the over-stimulation of the likes of Legoland and Disneyland. Children's book area has a small table and chairs. Its darn convenient that their Starbucks is right next to the kids' section. I'd don't feel especially guilty about using the place as our private place space since we inevitably buy something. Oh yeah, there's also lots of books for adults with comfortable nooks for reading. I plum forgot about those...I haven't had the free time in ages. At this rate, I won't be able enjoy reading during retirement: I'll have to work two jobs 'til I die to pay for these family vacations! read more

The employees were unknowledgeable, unhelpful, impatient and generally seemed to not want to be there. If you don't like your job, then quit! If you're Hispanic looking, with tattoos, steer clear; obviously prejudicial employees who were very clearly not interested in helping me. I came looking for a specific special issue magazine. I'll order from Amazon from now on, retailers, this is why your storefronts are failing; poor customer interactions. ZERO STARS read more