The Tattered Cover Bookstore Files For Chapter 11

Denver's Tattered Cover Bookstore, where I worked as the bookkeeper for almost 5 years before retiring in 2018, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this past Monday, and plans to close 3 stores  - Westminster, Colorado Springs, and McGregor Square - by the end of the month. This is not entirely unexpected. The store has been struggling ever since long time owner Joyce Meskis sold the Denver bookstore chain back in 2015 due to health reasons. Joyce was a savvy businesswoman and a genius at running bookstores, totally dedicated to keeping the chain running. When hard times hit, such as during the Great Recession in 2008, she loaned the store money to keep it afloat, and was paid back over time in installments. Unfortunately, she sold the chain to people who did not have the knowledge nor resources to run such a large-scale operation, and when the pandemic hit, facing bankruptcy, they sold it to an investor group. And by the way, I took the self-portrait on the left at the Colfax location, where the company offices are located, back when I worked there. And rest assured, regular blog readers, I do not plan to put my ugly mug on every blog photograph from this point on. It is just that this is the only photo I have of what was once the lobby of the Lowenstein Theater, where the Tattered Cover relocated to from its Cherry Creek location in June of 2006.

That move from the four story location in Cherry Creek, at the time one of the largest bookstores in the country, marked a turning point for the Tattered Cover. Due to competition from companies such as Amazon and a move toward e-books, the chain had to downsize its main store. And the three story Lower Downtown (LoDo) location went from three stories to two to one, and eventually it was no longer financially viable to remain at its 16th Street Mall location. The investor group that bought the chain consists of many prominent investors, both local businessmen and publishing executives, but they put people with no bookstore experience in charge. A strategy to increase the number of stores to improve revenue backfired, resulting in the chain being unable to sufficiently stock the shelves with books, further reducing sales. And so the Tattered Cover is now unable to pay its vendors, and thus had to file Chapter 11. And will they be able to reorganize and survive after coming out of bankruptcy? The new CEO is a bankruptcy attorney who was hired to deal with this exact situation, and so hopefully the chain can survive as a four store operation. I wish them well.