Uncle Bobbie's bookstore gets shout-out in Netflix's 'The Madness,' but it's been in movies before

The Germantown shop, which also sells coffee and pastries, has served as a set for Kerry Washington and HBO.

Uncle Bobbie's bookstore appears, in T-shirt form, in the Netflix limited series 'The Madness.' The Colman Domingo show is the top-streamed title on the platform as of Friday.
@UncleBobbies/Facebook

Philadelphia takes a starring role in "The Madness," the limited series that hit Netflix on Thanksgiving. Though it was largely filmed in Toronto, the thriller is set here and stars West Philly's busiest actor, Colman Domingo

Reading Terminal Market, City Hall and Malcolm X Park appear in the show, and so does a Northwest Philly shop – just not its storefront. Uncle Bobbie's Coffee & Books earns a cameo in the fourth episode, when a character sports one of its T-shirts.


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"Netflix is not a small platform," Justin Moore, general manager at Uncle Bobbie's in Germantown, said. "So it was like, wow, a lot of people are seeing our logo, some for the first time. Some as like a friendly reminder, (it's like), 'oh, that's the place I go to get my coffee,' or 'that's the place I get my books from.'"

The bookstore and cafe, at 5445 Germantown Ave., was founded in 2017 by Marc Lamont Hill – an author and TV personality, just like the lead character of "The Madness." Moore said Uncle Bobbie's has seen a bump in online sales since the show premiered, though he acknowledged holiday shopping could be a factor. What's more quantifiable, in his estimation, is the excitement. Loyal customers have been tagging Uncle Bobbie's in screenshots of the episode and hyping its appearance elsewhere on social media.

"People who come to Uncle Bobbie's, they feel like they're a part of it," Moore said. "Like, you know when your favorite indie band goes big, right? It's like I was with them since the beginning. Now they're on Netflix."

Uncle Bobbie's staffers were aware of the show's plans, but just barely. According to Moore, a producer contacted him in 2023 for permission to use a shirt with the shop's logo but offered only vague details on the project, like its name and star. Moore approved the request and mostly forgot about it until "The Madness" debuted and shot to the No. 1 streamed show on the platform.

The series concerns a massive conspiracy that ensnares news pundit Muncie Daniels (Domingo). After he is framed for the murder of a white supremacist in the Poconos, Muncie tries to find the true culprit while on the run in Philadelphia. His estranged daughter Kallie (Gabrielle Graham), who has built her own life in North Philly, helps him hide. She's the one who sports the Uncle Bobbie's shirt.

"Kallie definitely represents someone who would be an Uncle Bobbie's regular," Moore said. "She's very politically minded. Well read, cares very, very deeply about community and Black folks and Blackness. And that is obviously what Uncle Bobbie's is built on and stands for in terms of mission."

This isn't the store's first brush with Hollywood. Kerry Washington has filmed interviews at Uncle Bobbie's, Moore said, and the shop also appeared in the HBO documentary "Stand Up and Shout: Songs from a Philly High School." The John Legend-produced film followed the students and teachers at Hill-Freedman World Academy as they recorded an album, and one of the instructors, Kristal Oliver, asked that her interviews be shot at Uncle Bobbie's.

Still, Moore conceded "The Madness" feature is the shop's biggest exposure yet in terms of scale. He's hoping the visibility will inspire more customers to buy shirts like Kallie's as Philadelphians search for holiday gifts.


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