BRAINERD — CatTales Books and Gifts is under new management, but not a new manager. Independent bookseller Luke Mettler has taken over management of the downtown bookstore from Theresa Woodward, who bought the store from its original owner, Wendy Rosnau, in 2016. Woodward was planning on selling the business herself in 2023 when she decided to move away from Minnesota’s cold winters to alleviate her arthritis and fibromyalgia symptoms, but the planned sale fell through.
Unable to pass on CatTales’ ownership , Woodward needed someone to hold down the fort after her move. Mettler stepped up. Mettler said he had been involved in the downtown community since he was a kid, and he was overjoyed to see and be a part of the area’s growth.
“I went from napping on a couch in there after school, and then all of a sudden there’s a beautiful restaurant where the Blue Ox used to be, and all of this progress that’s just happened,” Mettler said. ADVERTISEMENT CatTales is an exceedingly cozy bookstore with towering shelves just on the comfortable side of maze-like. The majority of the space is dedicated to donated or traded books, sorted loosely by genre and authors’ last names, with a handful of shelves and tables near the front door covered in crystals, tea cups and other trinkets.
In front of one such tea cup collection was a chalkboard sign that read “Tea Party Supplies,” a display concept Mettler and Woodward thought up after Woodward’s mother purchased some of th.
