Iða Zimsen

Iða Zimsen is a bookshop and coffee shop in Grófin, the old-harbour corner of downtown Reykjavík. Books on the shelves, coffee in the cups, and enough quiet corners to lose an afternoon in either one.

I started here as a barista, behind the espresso machine. I have always liked both books and coffee, and the longer I worked here the more I saw a place worth betting on. So when the chance came to take it on, I did, with the simple goal of keeping what people already loved and making the rest better.

Running it is the part that taught me the most. I look after the day-to-day operations, the finances and steady growth, and the team that makes the place feel like itself. None of it is glamorous, and most of it never shows up on the menu, but it is where the real work lives.

I do all of this alongside a full-time role in software, which makes for some very full weeks. Keeping a good bookshop and coffee shop alive in the middle of Reykjavík is worth it, and I would not want to give up either side of it.