Book, Bean &Ice Cream

Book, Bean & Ice Cream occupies 61 Poulton Street on Kirkham's high street, where Elaine Silverwood and Sue Wardell first opened the shop as Silverdell in 2000. Twenty-five years on, Silverwood still runs it, combining a general bookshop stocking fiction, children's titles and non-fiction with a coffee counter serving homemade cakes and ice cream. Through her separate events business, Silverwood Events, she has brought authors into the shop and into local schools for signings and talks for more than two decades, building a reputation as one of the region's more active independent booksellers on the events side. The shop was a regional finalist for the Independent Bookshop of the Year award in 2021. Customers can sit in with a coffee and cake while browsing, with the bookshop and café run as one business rather than two separate concessions sharing a room.