NYC’s Sweet Pickle Books is so popular with fans from Harry Styles to Olivia Wilde and Jacob Elordi that it’s expanding

A quirky Lower East Side book shop has found itself in a pickle — and it’s loving it.

Sweet Pickle Books — which trades jars of pickles for books and counts celebs Harry Styles, Olivia Wilde and Jacob Elordi among its customers — has become so successful that it’s scouting a second location.

“I had no idea what I was doing with this store, and it worked out tenfold — I hit the jackpot,” owner Leigh Altshuler, 34, told The Post.

Altshuler, a former communications director for the famed Strand Bookstore, said she started the venture during the pandemic in November 2020 with 360 jars of pickles she preserved herself.

She said she continues to build up her inventory on Tuesdays and Wednesdays by offering a 2-pound jar of pickles for every five-book trade-in — then peddles the tomes to its flocking fans.

The Manhattan storefront, which has doled out thousands of used books ranging from free to $14, is flooded on weekends and afternoons with fresh-faced bookworms.

It also draws celebrity patrons such as superstar singer Styles, Hollywood actress Wilde, “Euphoria” and “Priscilla” heartthrob Elordi, actress Emma Roberts, singer Joe Jonas and Aussie crooner Troye Sivan.

Wilde helped spark a social-media frenzy over the store when she wore a Sweet Pickle Books hat in an “Elle” photo shoot in 2022.

Styles’ visit to Sweet Pickle Books ahead of his Madison Square Garden residency also “changed the game” for the shop and cemented it as a celebrity favorite, the owner said.

Aside from its pop-culture fans, the store happened to tap a passionate preserve-obsessed fanbase, Altshuler said.

“Book people, they show up,” she said. “What I didn’t know is that pickle people show up: it’s their whole personality.

“So many people come in and say, ‘Oh my God, books and pickles are my two favorite things! How did you know?’ “

The store is now “bursting at the seams” with donated inventory, prompting Altshuler to find a second home in the neighborhood for a pickle-themed outpost.

The new shop, “Sweet Pickle Books: Rare, Fine and Fancy,” will sell and showcase rare, out-of-print and otherwise more expensive texts — such as a century-old edition of “Jack and the Beanstalk” and a signed Michael Jackson “Moonwalk” autobiography.

“Emma Roberts is a huge book person, she loves coming here,” Altshuler said, pointing to the “scary” secluded spot where she currently keeps rare texts. “She was looking at the rare-book shelf, and she was like, ‘That’s where you keep [the collection]?’ “

Altshuler said she is negotiating a lease for the new space and recently re-signed a five-year lease for her current Orchard Street spot.

“This is going to give everything here a chance to live a little more,” she said of her new shop.

The inspiration for her brine-based bookstore came after Altshuler, a onetime PR worker for the Strand, was laid off from her marketing job at the immersive theater show “Sleep No More” and sought refuge in used-book stores as COVID descended on New York City.

“I wanted to do used books and something [else], because I wanted something to offset the cost,” she said. “And I wanted to name the store something that was a homage to the LES.” 

To Altshuler, pickles and books paired perfectly given the neighborhood’s history at the turn of the century as a Jewish enclave known for its booming pickle markets — and the notion also paired well with her own Jewish roots.

The nearby Tenement Museum even stops at the store on guided tours, where tourists can buy a jar of sweet, dill or spicy pickles for $12.95.

“It’s a history that’s in danger of people not knowing it,” Altshuler said of the local pickle connection. “Eastern European immigrants, they fled the war, they lived in tenements. … It’s such a New York story, and it’s definitely one that should not be forgotten.” 

Altshuler now serves up a side of history with each transaction, recounting the history of the “pickle alley” area to scores of tourists from across the world who visit her shop.

She said that when she opened the shop with her own pickles, she expected the supply to last a “lifetime.”

But the business model proved to be so effective that she began outsourcing pickles from a farm in Texas – and has now doled out over 80,000 jars and counting.