Sad news from Memphis, Tenn.: the Booksellers at Laurelwood is closing in February, the Commercial Appeal reported. Owner Neil Van Uum told the newspaper that the store had had "a slight decline in traffic every year for the last five years. We adjusted our mix [of products]. Brought in used books. Went after more school orders and book fairs. But there was just a slight erosion of traffic over the last five years."
He added that at 25,000 square feet, the store is "just too big" and has four years left on its lease at the Laurelwood Shopping Center. The bookstore and its restaurant, Booksellers Bistro, have about 50 employees; many booksellers have worked at the store and its predecessor for decades. The closing will leave Memphis with just a few independent bookstores, including Burke's Book Store and South Main Book Juggler.
The Booksellers at Laurelwood began as a Davis-Kidd Booksellers outlet and became part of Van Uum's Joseph-Beth Booksellers, when Joseph-Beth bought Davis-Kidd's stores in 1997. In 2010, Joseph-Beth went bankrupt and most of its stores were bought by other parties. Van Uum, however, bought the Memphis store and kept it open as the Booksellers at Laurelwood. Van Uum also owns the Booksellers, which has two stores in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Eddie Burton, manager of the Booksellers at Laurelwood, who has worked for it and Davis-Kidd for 32 years, said that a smaller store, "maybe structured a little differently," is "very viable," adding, "There's too good a group of core customers and a staff that is second to none. We'd be interested in talking to anybody, any backer, anybody locally who would be interested in seeing this in another incarnation."