There is home. There is work.
And then there is the place in between.
In a city that never sleeps, where finding somewhere to grab a drink is rarely a challenge, finding somewhere to simply belong can be something else entirely.
Wyndee Forrest and Valarie Aguirre have a name for that place.
The third place.
It’s somewhere that isn’t home and isn’t work. Somewhere you can arrive alone without necessarily feeling alone. A laptop can open, a book can come off the shelf, a beer can be poured, or a conversation can begin without anyone particularly planning it.
Their paths to creating one in the Las Vegas Arts District could hardly have been more different.
Forrest built a brewery.
Aguirre built a bookstore without permanent walls.
One followed a passion for craft beer that began thousands of miles away in Europe. The other traveled from television production into books, pop-ups, mysteries and a community of readers.
For years, they were writing separate stories.
They just didn’t know yet that those stories were heading toward the same place.
Now they’re coming together at CraftHaus Brewery in the Arts District, where The Book & The Bean is putting down permanent roots among the taps.
Books. Coffee. Beer.
But don’t mistake the inventory for the purpose.
Each gives someone a different reason to walk through the door.
What happens after they arrive is the real story.
A Pint and a Place to Stay
Long before The Book & The Bean entered the picture, the idea behind CraftHaus was beginning to take shape thousands of miles from the Nevada desert.
Traveling through Europe, Wyndee and Dave Forrest encountered a culture around beer that stayed with them.
People lingered. They talked. They gathered around tables and took their time.
The beer mattered, certainly. But so did everything happening around it.
A pint could become an invitation to slow down long enough for something else to happen.
Conversation. Friendship. Community.
When the Forrests returned home, Wyndee didn’t simply want to make good beer. She wanted to recreate some of what they had experienced: a place where the drink might bring you through the door, but the people gave you a reason to stay.
That idea eventually became CraftHaus Brewery.
Years later, another woman was moving toward remarkably similar territory from an entirely different direction.
Every Good Mystery Needs a Beginning
Before there was The Book & The Bean, Valarie Aguirre spent years working in television production, in a world of schedules, crews, deadlines and constantly moving pieces.
Then her own story took an unexpected turn.
Books.
And if you’re looking for Aguirre in a bookstore, the mystery section wouldn’t be a bad place to start.
Dark thrillers, psychological mysteries and stories with enough twists to keep the pages turning are part of her world. Her Murder and Merlot book club takes something traditionally solitary, reading, and turns it into an opportunity for connection.
The Book & The Bean grew without a conventional storefront, through online sales, pop-ups, book fairs, book clubs and events around Henderson and Las Vegas.
The books traveled to the readers.
But Aguirre was also creating something around those books.
Community.
Now that her books finally have permanent shelves, those shelves reveal quite a bit about the kind of community she wants to create.
Look a Little Closer
Certain titles almost seem to wink back at you.
Best Offer Wins.
A little farther down:
They Say a Girl Died Here.
For a bookseller with a fondness for mysteries, it feels entirely appropriate.
But then Aguirre points lower.
Toward the bottom shelf.
Banned books.
Aguirre intentionally gives them a home.
It’s a small detail in a room filled with stories, but it says something important about the safe and welcoming place she wants The Book & The Bean to be.
She’s making room for different readers, different ideas and different stories.
Some of the books on that bottom shelf have been challenged somewhere else.
Here, they’re given a place.
And so are the people who want to read them.
Still, one mystery remained.
Where would a bookstore without permanent walls finally call home?
Plot Twist: A Brewery
The answer turned out to be CraftHaus.
Aguirre and Forrest had already discovered that books and beer could share a room through events like Pints & Pages. One had built community around a pint. The other had built it around a page.
Now those two communities are sharing the same address.
And if you look around the room, you’ll notice something else.
Nothing Quite Matches. Somehow, Everything Belongs.
Books sit near beer taps. Coffee joins brewery history. Warm woven lights hang overhead. Artwork and shelves fill the room.
And then there’s her.
Dominating one wall is a massive, 24-foot Jubilee!-inspired showgirl mural painted by artist Donovan Fitzgerald.
She has watched over the Arts District taproom since it opened in 2019.
And she has a name.
We’re not going to tell you what it is.
According to Forrest, the artist didn’t name her. Neither did the owners. Her name came from the tradesmen working on the space as the taproom was being built.
So here’s a little challenge from West Valley Pulse.
Look at her.
Study the face, the flowers, the feathers and that unmistakable Las Vegas attitude.
What do you think they named her?
Make your guess, then walk up to the bar and ask.
They’ll tell you.
We won’t.
After all, every good story deserves a little mystery.
Under her gaze, books, beer taps, artwork, coffee, brewery history and the beginning of a bookstore now share the same room.
Nothing quite matches.
Somehow, everything belongs.
And perhaps that’s the best description of the third place Forrest and Aguirre are creating.
Opening daily at 8 a.m. changes the rhythm of the room.
Coffee brings people through the door in the morning. Books invite them to browse. A remote worker can open a laptop. Someone else can disappear into a mystery beneath the gaze of a showgirl whose name we’re still not giving away.
Later, a beer gets poured and friends meet after work.
Somewhere between morning coffee and an evening pint, the boundaries separating bookstore, coffee spot and neighborhood brewery begin to disappear.
Sometimes you don’t need an event or an invitation.
You just need somewhere to go.
Somewhere you can arrive alone. Somewhere staying awhile isn’t considered taking up space. Somewhere you begin recognizing faces and, eventually, someone recognizes yours.
That’s the third place.
Two Different Roads to the Same Room
And this is where the stories of Wyndee Forrest and Valarie Aguirre come full circle.
Wyndee’s journey through Europe wasn’t ultimately only about beer.
Valarie’s journey with The Book & The Bean wasn’t ultimately only about books.
Both discovered that something they loved could become a reason for people to gather.
Wyndee created a place where people could gather.
Valarie created shelves where different stories could belong.
Now they’re putting the people and the stories in the same room.
One followed beer.
One followed books.
Both were following community.
The Grand Reveal
Beginning Friday, October 9, everyone else gets to experience what they’ve been building.
The Book & The Bean and CraftHaus Brewery celebrate a three-day Grand Reveal Weekend at 197 E. California Ave., Suite 130, in the Las Vegas Arts District.
The weekend includes morning coffee samples, a free DIY bookmark bar, Boozy Book Trivia, a cinnamon roll pop-up, Boozy Book Bingo, children’s story time and book signing with local author David McMullin, live acoustic music from Lisa Foiles, and a Retriever Rescue LV adoption event on the patio.
It’s an eclectic lineup, but perhaps that’s the point.
Readers. Beer drinkers. Coffee lovers. Families. Music fans. Dog lovers. People arriving with friends and people arriving alone.
Different reasons to walk through the same door.
Stay Awhile
The real test of this place won’t come during Grand Reveal Weekend.
It will come on an ordinary Tuesday morning months from now.
Someone will walk in alone.
A laptop will open. A book will come off the shelf. Coffee will be poured. Later, so will a beer.
Maybe two people who didn’t arrive together will start talking.
Maybe somebody will become a regular.
Maybe someone new to Las Vegas will eventually walk through the door and hear their name.
None of it will make a headline.
And that’s exactly the point.
Years ago, Wyndee Forrest traveled through Europe and discovered what could happen when people were given a reason to slow down, gather and stay awhile.
Valarie Aguirre spent years taking books into the community before The Book & The Bean ever had permanent walls.
Their journeys started in very different places.
This week, in the Las Vegas Arts District, they’ve arrived at the same one.
A third place.
Pull up a chair.
Stay awhile.
Grand Reveal Weekend
The Book & The Bean × CraftHaus Brewery
October 9–11, 2026
CraftHaus Brewery, Arts District
197 E. California Ave., Suite 130
Las Vegas, Nevada
West Valley Pulse
Las Vegas People • Places • Stories
One Community. Many Voices. One Pulse.
