Barnes & Noble booksellers began in New York City in 1886 and grew to become the largest retail bookseller in the United States. Barnes & Noble has been called “Barn(e)s and No Bull” since at least 1999. A joke was posted on Reddit:
 
What kind of farm has lots of books but no livestock?
submitted May 26, 2016 by MollysYes
Barns and no-bulls.
(This joke was made up by my 7 year-old cousin.)
 
Another Barnes & Noble nickname is “Barnes and Ignoble.”
 
 
Wikipedia: Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble, Inc., is a Fortune 500 company, the largest retail bookseller in the United States, and a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products in the country. The company operates 640 retail stores (as of January 1, 2016) in all 50 U.S. states.
 
Barnes & Noble operates mainly through its Barnes & Noble Booksellers chain of bookstores and the company’s headquarters are at 122 Fifth Avenue in the Ladies’ Mile Historic District in Manhattan in New York City.
 
After a series of mergers and bankruptcies in the American bookstore industry since the 1990s, Barnes & Noble stands as the United States’ last remaining national bookstore chain.
     
Google Groups: alt.marketing.online.ebay
Boycott must have been a bust  
Harv Laser
9/5/99
(...)
Their prices are probably 99.99% identical to Barnes and No Bull for whom i’ve never seen any tv ads hyping their web presence.
 
Google Groups: rec.collecting.coins
Mint Order Went Through
Harv Laser
6/13/00
(...) 
I order a book from Barnes and No Bull, the order goes through, I get a confirmation email in a couple of nano-webbers, and the book handed to me by the mailman a few days later.
   
Google Groups: alt.dumpster
books
Dan Birchall
9/26/00
(...)
Behind a Barns and No Bull 😊 store near where I used to live, I saw probably 50-100 copies of a single paperback romance novel “devalued” in this manner and chucked in the dumpster
 
Twitter
Nate Bishop
‏@natebishop
Barns and No Bull!!! #unpopularstores
11:28 PM - 10 Aug 2009
     
Twitter
James Isaiah Munoz
‏@jamesmunoz
I finally came up with the perfect name for my bookstore that only sells books on farming- “Barns and No Bull!”
6:52 PM - 10 Aug 2010
 
Twitter 
Brett Glass
‏@brettglass
I’m at Barns and No Bulls. I call it that because… well, you can probably guess. #BigBoxOBooks
8:40 PM - 23 Apr 2011
 
Twitter
Thomas Owens
‏@tprowens
A farmer opened some bookstores because he had barns and no bulls.
2:14 PM - 21 Aug 2012
 
Twitter
Carousel of Regress
‏@thesearesongs
gonna start a business making buildings for all-cow farms. i’m gonna call it Barns and No Bulls
4:05 PM - 18 Feb 2015
 
reddit
What kind of farm has lots of books but no livestock?
submitted May 26, 2016 by MollysYes
Barns and no-bulls.
(This joke was made up by my 7 year-old cousin.)