Outwrite Books & Coffeehouse, which has served Atlanta’s GLBT community since 1993, and hosted such big name authors recently as Gregory Maguire and Chelsea Handler, announced this morning that, as of today, the store is closed for business. In a letter e-mailed to store customers and posted on the store’s website, Philip Rafshoon, Outwrite’s owner, cited the store’s continuing financial difficulties, which he ascribed to changes in the book industry as well as to a weak economy. The decline in sales was compounded by the high rent at the store’s trendy Midtown location, prompting the store to announce in November that it was moving to another location with a lower rent once the lease was up at the end of January. Rafshoon had been searching for another spot for the past three months, but was unable to find a suitable one, writing, “Unfortunately, we have run out of time and money to make that transformation.”
This morning, Rafshoon told PW by phone that, after alerting his customers nine months ago that the store was in danger of closing if sales did not pick up, the local gay community “really stepped up.” He described former customers returning to the store and continuing to shop there, while others volunteered to strategize on how to keep the store’s doors open. “We tried every possible concept,” he explained, including making the store a nonprofit.
But, in the end, it wasn’t enough: time was not on their side. Despite a 20% increase in sales over the holidays, the store was too far into a financial hole to dig itself out in time. Outwrite was four months behind on its rent, and the landlord started eviction proceedings this month.
“We could not get out of that hole without filing for bankruptcy,” Rafshoon said, disclosing that he filed the papers this morning, after selling off fixtures and discounting his stock by 60%. “I got the important things out,” he said, “The rest is up to the courts.”
Rafshoon, who employed nine at the store besides himself, praised his employees, declaring, “It’s hard to let the bookselling team go. We just love the hell of out each other.” Rafshoon intends to return to the book business in the future, or do “something in the GLBT community.”
This is the second prominent GLBT bookstore to close in the past year. A Different Light, the iconic San Francisco GLBT bookstore, located on the city’s famed Castro Street, closed its doors after 32 years in business in April.
