At San Francisco’s newest bookshop, colorful book covers featuring couples stare out from the walls. Signs like “Grumpy Sunshine” and “Forced Proximity” beckon to the curious. Customers line up for tea or pastries in the back, offering an opportunity to mingle. There’s even a small sofa for a customer — or two — to sink into. 

Welcome to the Love Potion Library, the one place in San Francisco where you’re certain to find happily ever after. Located at 284 Noe St. in the Castro neighborhood, the new bookstore, which is also a tearoom and wine bar, is dedicated exclusively to romance novels. 

Inside the bright and airy space, previously home to Jeffrey’s Natural Pet Foods, books are organized by genres like contemporary, historicals or romantasy, and then tropes like “Enemies to Lovers,” where characters spar as they fall in love, or “Fated Mates,” where characters are destined for each other. The tropes are meant to help readers find exactly what they want, according to Veena Patel, the bookstore’s owner. 

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“It’s nice to have them broken out that way, so if you’re in a mood for something specific, you can go straight to that section,” she said. 

Customers browse through the books on display at the Love Potion Library in San Francisco on May 13, 2026.

Owner Veena Patel holds one of the books she recommends at the Love Potion Library, a bookstore and cafe focusing on romance literature, in San Francisco on May 13, 2026.

Romance books focused on workplace romance appear on shelves at the Love Potion Library in San Francisco on May 13, 2026.

Patel wasn’t always a small business owner. She used to be a product manager working in climate tech. She said that she found herself “feeling very lonely in tech” after she started a remote job during the pandemic. “Many people were in person, and so they made friends with each other,” she said, “but because I was remote, I always felt a little on the outside.” 

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Romance novels helped with the loneliness, she said, especially since she had grown up reading the genre, with her mother reading........

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