The Vanderbilt Square Barnes & Noble in Houston will close June 19 after 28 years in business. Barnes & Noble said they didn’t want to close the store, but their landlord decided not to renew their lease.
Bookstores
Bookselling: P&T Knitwear Bookstore; Book Soup Union
A new bookstore, P&T Knitwear, will open on Orchard Street NYC Memorial Day weekend. The 3,000 square foot store will “will carry titles for children, teens, and adults spanning all genres, plus there will be a particular focus on fiction and nonfiction highlighting New York City.” In an Instagram post, workers at Book Soup in West Hollywood announced their intent to unionize, seeking “fair wages, adequate staffing, disability access, and democratic decision making in the workplace.” They have partnered with the Communication Workers of America and “are hoping that our employers at [Vroman’s Bookstore] will voluntarily recognize us.”
Bookselling: Two Replacement Barnes & Noble Stores to Open
On Monday, May 9 the chain will open an “interim store” in Flagstaff, AZ — filling in for a longstanding location that closed in January, “while a new permanent location is being determined.” Then on May 11, they will open a new standing store in Blue Springs, MO outside of Kansas City, replacing a store in Independence, MO that closed in February.
Bookselling: Rainy Day Books for Sale
Founder and president of Rainy Day Books in Kansas City Vivien Jennings and her husband Roger Doeren are selling the 47-year-old store, Kansas City Business Journal reports. “As the world begins to open back up, the pace and hospitality of the author events we produce requires greater stamina than we have at ages 77 and 70,” they said in an email newsletter. “It is time for someone new to be the face and voice of Rainy Day Books.” The owners’ son, Geoffrey, will screen potential buyers through June then in July will follow up with those “who we believe are […]
Bookselling: Another Longtime Barnes & Noble Store to Close, In New Jersey
This time it’s their store in Clark, NJ, a location that has been in business for 24 years. Like the big Boston store at the Prudential Center, this store will close on June 19, after the “landlord has opted not to renew our lease.” Another New Jersey BN store, in Springfield, is reportedly at the end of its lease after 30 years in that location is likely to be demolished later this year to make way for a newly-built Chick-fil-A.
Big Boston Barnes & Noble Store to Close
Missing from the recent NYT version of Barnes & Noble’s trajectory was any mention of the large superstores that have been closing, sometimes swapped out for much smaller stores in the same area. Next on that list is the chain’s big 36,000-square-foot store in Boston’s Prudential Center, which will close June 19 after 20 years in that location. The store said it was unable to negotiate a lease renewal with the landlord, and the chain encourages area customers to drive outside of Boston to its locations in Hingham and Peabody. BN has been having particular trouble in the Boston area: […]