One of my favorite San Francisco indie bookstores is in trouble. A Clean, Well-Lighted Place for Books is now up for sale. Owner Neal Sofman cites declining sales and lousy foot traffic. This also explains why Sofman withdrew the highly lucrative domian name bookstore.com, which I had mistakenly reported as “hijacked” last week. (Thanks to Dan Wickett for the head’s up on this.)
That’s too bad. I have always thought that was in kind of a weird location, though. It seems like he could do better in a different neighborhood.
he’s opening a smaller neighborhood-style bookstore at west portal. i had the pleasure of working at their original cupertino store years ago – it seems they had a penchant for weird locations.
What was weird about the Cupertino location? As I recall, it was pretty much right across the street from DeAnza College. A very pleasant store and I suppose it just fell victim to landlord greed.
That is too bad. My dad was a customer and has a huge collection of books and music up here in Reno. I am sorry to hear about this turn of events.
http://www.twitter.com/fahrenheit1969
A very long time ago I fell in love with one of the employees at the Cupertino location while buying a book. That was the best bookstore ever.