Tom Bailey

tom.bailey@commercialappeal.com

The city’s largest independent bookstore will soon close.

The Booksellers at Laurelwood will start a liquidation sale on Friday and likely shut its doors for good some time in February, owner Neil Van Uum said Tuesday.

“It isn’t any one thing,’’ said the Cincinnati resident who drove to Memphis to inform most of the staff on Tuesday morning. He had broken the news to longtime manager Eddie Burton a week before Christmas.

“We have seen a slight decline in traffic every year for the last five years,’’ Van Uum said. “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.’’

Van Uum’s Joseph-Beth Booksellers bought the former Davis-Kidd Booksellers at 387 Perkins Extended in 1997. The eight-store chain went bankrupt in 2010, sending Davis-Kidd toward liquidators.

Something of a public outcry arose from longtime, loyal customers who prefer buying books in person from experienced booksellers instead of over the Internet, even if it means paying more.

At the 11th hour Van Uum borrowed money to buy back the Memphis bookstore from a liquidator who offered the highest bid in the bankruptcy auction. Forced to change the store’s name, Van Uum kept The Booksellers at Laurelwood open for more than six years.

Laurelwood renovating, adding stores

The bookstore and its restaurant, Booksellers Bistro, employ about 50 people.

The 25,000-square-foot business has long been an anchor of Laurelwood Shopping Center. In fact, a call to the shopping center’s office triggers a recording from management that states in part: “If you’re looking for The Booksellers, their number is…’’

The store’s yearly net losses are $50,000 and growing. A big part of the reason is the store’s relatively large size, Van Uum said, adding, “It’s just too big.’’

Independent bookstores with less space — about 5,000 square feet — and fewer employees have been succeeding across the nation, Van Uum said. But Booksellers at Laurelwood was saddled with another four years on its lease.

Burton has worked for Booksellers at Laurelwood for 32 years, the past 12 as the manager.

“I do feel a need to say I think this is very viable,’’ he said of a right-sized independent bookstore in Memphis.

Burton said he would be surprised if an independent bookstore — “maybe smaller, maybe structured a little differently’’ — doesn’t open in Memphis again. The city's other independent bookstore, the smaller Burke's Book Store at 936 S. Cooper, opened in 1875.

“There’s too good a group of core customers and a staff that is second to none,’’ Burton said of Booksellers.

“We’d be interested in talking to anybody, any backer, anybody locally who would be interested in seeing this in another incarnation, we would be interested in talking to.’’

The store’s staff includes a core group of employees who have worked there 10, 15, 20 and 25 years or more.

Burton described the employees, even the younger, newer ones, as highly educated and, of course, well read. He said he would like to see a financial backer support a new bookstore “before seeing the staff scatter.’’

Meanwhile, the bookstore manager said he will stay busy the next few weeks overseeing the liquidation sale and helping his staff find jobs.