1775 Welcome back Gaylords!

For 25 years we enjoyed the Little Professor Bookstore in the Lane Avenue Mall operated by the Gaylord family--husband, wife and kids. It expanded to five, went public, then bankrupt. The family also operated some Cookstores, and I think perhaps a bath and linens shop. Now they've come home.

The new bookstore, back on Lane Avenue, will be called Liberty Books, and will have a coffee bar, internet access, and study area. Oh--I'm in heaven. It will be 10,000 sq. ft. and have 7,000 magazine titles. Be still my heart. Newspapers (foreign) will be printed from the internet and sold by special order.

Here's an Aug. 3, 1998 Publisher's Weekly article about its demise:

"In today 's cutthroat bookselling environment, smaller chains look for a niche to survive. Crown Books's Chapter 11 filing last month is the latest in a string of bankruptcies and downsizings that have caused many observers to question the viability of regional bookstore chains.

Left behind as Barnes & Noble and Borders grew rapidly in the 1990s and often not as flexible or close to the market as single-store independents, most regional chains have suffered dramatically.

In addition to the high profile bankruptcies of Crown and Lauriat's, three other, smaller regional chains filed for Chapter 11 over the last 10 months. The Gaylord Companies, which operated five Little Professor Bookstores as well as six Cookstores in Ohio, filed for Chapter 11 last November. Village Green Bookstores, which at one point operated 12 stores in upstate New York, went the Chapter 11 route in January."

Story about Empire Books in West Virginia, owned by the Gaylords.