Port Townsend’s hottest new shop sells an old favorite. Typewriters.

Type Townsend opened on Water Street in the Flagship Landing Building on Dec. 3 to a round of clacking keys.

“We brought in what we thought would be what people might remember,” said Shelley French, who felt bold-faced enough to begin the new venture.

“There’s a huge bit of nostalgia with typewriters,” she added. “Everybody who walks in that door has a story.”

At the store, shoppers can buy, sell, and trade typewriters — as well as get help with service and repair.

French also hopes to hold events in the space with ideas for workshops and poetry readings.

While they’re still waiting on a health permit to serve food, a cup of good old coffee is available with plans for fancier beverages in the works.

“It’s kind of hard to take a typewriter into the other coffeeshops. If you’re in there typing away, it can be very annoying to the people who are there,” French said. “This is a place where you’re welcome to bring your typewriter and make as much noise as you want.”

Unspooling the shop’s origin is a story all its own.

In 2019, after 40 years in corporate finance, French retired and decided to write a book with a typewriter.

“I just thought it would be great to be able to sit down at a desk with a typewriter and just be able to have a clean flow of consciousness without interruptions,” French said.

She bought one at an antique store in Port Townsend, got it home, and it didn’t work.

“I just assumed all typewriters work,” French said.

As any modern woman would, she went online to solve her problem, which led her on a trip to the Bremerton Office Machine Company owned by Paul Lundy.

“I took it down there to get it fixed and just kind of fell in love,” French said.

Lundy took over the Bremerton Office Machine Company after learning the trade from Bob Montgomery, who was a lifelong typewriter repair man. He inherited the trade from his father.

“I was amazed that there were still people who actually worked in typewriters,” French said.

So she began doing a bit of tinkering herself. It didn’t take long for her love to grow, and with it, a collection.

What started with individual purchases quickly added up before a lot of 70 typewriters caught her attention.

Within that mass of machinery there was a great need for repair, so back to Bremerton she went.

French ended up doing a 12-week apprenticeship with Lundy, learning the ins-and-outs from ribbons to reels.

At her own shop, French has the help of Griffin Stoss, who is currently enrolled in that very same apprenticeship program and who French eventually plans on handing the business over to — but not just yet.

First, French has to fulfill the stipulation her husband gave when she started the business: Have fun.

“Even now, he’ll pop his head in here a couple of times a day and he’ll go, ‘Are you having fun?’”

Her reply is always easy.

“I’m having fun.”