Our Story

The Towne Book Center & Wine Bar has been serving the greater Trappe & Collegeville area for almost 30 years. In the spring of 1990, PK Sindwani, a local resident since the mid-eighties, found himself facing a possible layoff. With a young child at home, PK and his wife Indira set about figuring out how they could support not only their growing family, but their community as well. And the area was missing something - a local bookstore. Taking into consideration not only their own economic situation, but that of the area they chose to make their home, they relized that a bookstore would help them and their community. When PK was laid off, the young Sindwani family was prepared and on November 8, 1990, Trappe & Collegeville's local bookstore opened it's doors for the first time as a small franchise of The Little Professor, a name some of our long time customers still use to refer to us today!

Shortly after the Little Professor came to be, PK and Indira set about helping others through the bookstore. They cared deeply for their adopted home where they decided to raise their two children, Monica and Nicky, and that encouraged them to find clever and creative ways to give back to the community that welcomed them so readily. Focusing on excellent customer service and serving not only individuals but local schools and business as well, they set about expanding the definition of local bookstore as community center. They introduced programs like Battle of the Books, now the Tournament of Books to coincide with March Madness, Story Towne, a weekly story hour for children of all ages, and the Angel Tree, a program to provide books for local children and families in need around the winter holidays.

With the success of the Little Professor boosting their confidence in Collegeville's desire for books, they decided to make the store their own. In 1996, the Little Professor became the local independent Trappe Book Center and in 1998, with business booming in 2006, they doubled in size. In 2011, PK and Indira, jumped at the opportunity to move the store to the newly constructed Providence Town Center in Collegeville, moving into a location triple the original size of the store, now 8,000 square feet and adding on a cafe and community meeting space. The Trappe Book Center was now the Towne Book Center & Café. In 2017 the store evolved once more to the Towne Book Center & Wine Bar, becoming the first bookstore in Pennsylvania to serve wine alongside books. In October 2019, PK officially retired from bookstore life to become the CFO of the American Booksellers Association, the trade association that includes almost every independent bookstore in the country. The business was sold to Drew Mondry, who shares PK's vision for the bookstore as a local focal point for community building.

As a proudly independent store, the Towne Book Center & Wine Bar is free to assist local residents and other businesses in the area in ways that other businesses selling books cannot. The store has programs to assist families in saving money on required reading while simultaneously earning funds for their school libraries, special fundraisers tailored to and for local charities, multiple book clubs, including the flagship club that bears the store's name still going strong after a decade, and opens its doors for special events at the community and public's request. Always seeking new ways to be involved, the Towne Book Center & Wine Bar excitedly looks forward to their future as Trappe & Collegeville's independent bookstore.

We invite you to stop in, see what we have planned, and meet the new owner, Drew. Or, if you are already a part of our bookstore family, why not drop by to say hello!  Because of you, the Towne Book Center & Wine Bar is a part of our community and we greatly appreciate each and every one of you.