The Shop Around the Corner provides a quiet place of refuge for shoppers in Fallbrook

For shop owner Theresa Morris, The Shop Around the Corner in Fallbrook is more than just a retail location.

"There's a lot more that happens here than meets the eye," Morris said. "Though I thought I was starting a bookstore/gift store, from the very beginning, probably within the first couple of days, I had people coming in who were complete strangers to me that would come in and look around.

"I'd start chatting with them, we'd end up sitting and having coffee and tea, and an hour later even big, burly strong men are with the tissue box, crying, hugging me as they walk out the door an hour later. That just kept happening and it continues to happen which is why I'm kind of in the process now of taking a class – life coaching.

"I'm too old to go back to school to get my counseling degree, so I thought, OK, what's the best way that I can do that, where I can get a little bit more clout to a certain extent to be able to help people," Morris said. "It seems like that's what this is and so I finally put on my flyer I'm more than just retail."

Morris opened the shop almost two years ago in September 2018.

"I never planned on opening up a bookstore, per say," Morris said.

She had been working at a shop nearby that closed its doors.

"I asked about buying her shop and she said 'no, it's too expensive to do that and there's legalities,'" Morris said.

The shop owner did, however, tell Morris if she wanted to open up her own shop, she would give the leftover inventory.

"That's what she did, that's how I got started," Morris said. "Everything came together the way I needed it to; I got a month-to-month rent, which normally everybody wants leases; even the alarm company said I could do a month-to-month."

The Shop Around the Corner offers a variety of books and gifts and provides space for people to sit, to have coffee or tea or to mull around and read a good book.

"I want it to be a place where people can come and feel safe, comfortable, feel accepted even if they believe in whatever," Morris said. "A lot of people know me as that (the Christian bookstore), but I am not only that, even though I don't take my faith lightly."

Morris said she sees a diverse group of people come through the shop each day.

"This is so, totally my happy place," Morris said. "So, I think the feeling that other people get, I actually feel it here."

For more information on The Shop Around the Corner, visit https://www.facebook.com/theshoparoundthecornershop/.

Lexington Howe can be reached by email at [email protected].