How does a bookstore — and a used bookstore at that — manage to stay in business for 50 years? For Recycle Bookstore owner Eric Johnson, it’s come down to one thing: “Listening to the customer.”

Johnson and his wife, Cynthia Johnson, were working at the Mercury News in 1998 when they rolled the dice on the opportunity to buy Recycle Books, which was opened in downtown San Jose by Pat and Joan Hayes in 1967. With no experience managing a bookstore, the Johnsons relied on Joan Hayes — Pat had passed away years earlier — to be their guide and customers to be their teachers.

“How to pick particular titles for sections is an art that you learn over years,” Eric Johnson said. “Thankfully the business was forgiving enough for me to make a lot of mistakes and learn from the customers. I let the community tell me what kind of bookstore they wanted.”

Recycle Bookstore bounced around downtown San Jose for its first few years before settling into a longtime home on East Santa Clara Street between Third and Fourth. But when the Johnsons couldn’t get a new lease from the building owners, they moved the store west to The Alameda. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

“Downtown is a good, lively spot, but it’s really hard to bring books to,” Johnson said. “New stock coming in is the life’s blood right there. But if somebody’s cleaning out their house and they have 10 boxes, going downtown, getting a hand truck and lugging it around a block isn’t easy.”

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And while Recycle Bookstore has been at 1066 The Alameda for only two decades (a second store opened in downtown Campbell in 2004), the store’s atmosphere implies a much longer history. Eric Johnson estimates there may be about 100,000 volumes in that store, a number he arrived at only by guessing how many books each case of shelves could handle. But as with any good haven for used books, there are stacks of books on the floors, more lining carts and you never know when you’ll get lucky and find a gem that somebody put back in the wrong place.

More than 300 books go out the door on any given day, with others coming in to replace them. Of course, it’s entirely possible that some book deep on a shelf has been there for decades waiting for a buyer.

The San Jose store has been known for its sci-fi and mystery collections, while the Campbell store features more new books and caters to families thanks to a children’s area expertly curated by manager Stacy Carlon. But there’s really something for everyone, whether it’s the newest thriller by Paula Hawkins, a rare book on local history or religion, or yet another Ian Fleming paperback you already have three copies of. (That last one might just be me.)

Both stores have a casual atmosphere, often with jazz serenading browsers from speakers placed on shelves. There are stools and chairs in the San Jose store, and it’s not unusual to find people sitting down to read among the stacks.

“I think we have a lot younger crowd and family-oriented crowd than it once had, but our customer base definitely represents San Jose, ethnically, gender-wise, age-wise,” Johnson said. “The diversity of the crowd is something that I’ve always been proud of.”

And then there are the cats. The old store’s most popular feline resident was Ernie, named after Papa Hemingway, and cats have been a constant ever since. The San Jose store was the domain of Gertrude and Zenda, and now Emma and Ender prowl its aisles. Emma is the friendlier of the pair, and she’ll follow customers meowing until she is paid the attention she deserves — at which point, she may just wander off to find someone else. Ender’s more of a strict librarian who seems a little put off that you’re there at all.

The Campbell store was famous for having the dearly departed Isbn — as in ISBN, as in, oh, just Google it — and now Isbn’s post has been taken up by the popular and ginger Bob, whom Carlon named after her favorite entertainer, Bob Newhart.

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“Cats have had a long history in bookstores, dating back to the 19th century, and I think there’s a connection with the personality and vibe that you get from a cat,” Johnson said. “The luxuriousness of having an infinite amount of time to do what you want to do, to sit down with a book without being disturbed, is exactly the feeling that a cat exudes as well.”

On July 2, the Johnsons hosted a double birthday party at the Hotel De Anza to celebrate both the bookstore’s 50th anniversary and Eric Johnson’s 50th birthday. The guest list included longtime employees and longtime customers — longtime friends, really — and the two cakes were beautifully decorated to resemble books. One had Recycle Bookstore’s cartoon cat logo on it, and the other was a stack of three of Eric Johnson’s favorite books, “Brave New World,” “Invisible Man,” and “A Wizard of Earthsea.”

My personal history with Recycle Bookstore began when my dad started taking me there when I was about 10. During my teenage years, this was the bookstore, filled with more mystery and magic than a Waldenbooks or B. Dalton could muster. I still measure other used bookstores against it and probably will for another 50 years, assuming we both survive that long.

“Just like when we started, I learn from listening to customers,” Johnson said. “I will do the same thing to determine the future. I’ll pay attention to the customers and sales and adapt — and fight as hard as I can to make the bookstore represent our community of readers. And there may come a time when that stops.”

Over the years, Johnson’s watched employees go through school and graduate, as well as have customers he met as children now bringing in kids of their own. “At the end of the 20 years and a lot of sweat equity to build it into what it is,” he said, “to see the result of that … to have that kind of presence and impact really humbles me.”