Not that many years ago, there were three bookstores on Lake Street in downtown Oak Park, but at the end of this year there likely will be none.
The last remaining bookstore on Lake Street, the beloved locally owned Book Table will be closing later this year. The Oak Parkers couple who owns the Book Table, Jason Smith, 51, and Rachel Weaver, 49, announced Aug. 7 that they will close the store after 21 years in the village.
In a telephone interview with Pioneer Press, Smith said that they made the decision to close the store simply because they are tired, and have lost the energy and spark that the store deserves.
“The best word is ‘tired,’” Smith said when asked why they are closing the store. “Running a retail establishment during the COVID years was incredibly stressful. We have an entire staff, and to worry every single day whether the decisions that you’re making are actually going to kill your staff is just a different way of running a business. I think just the pandemic, in general, took a lot [out] of everybody in all kinds of ways and that was the main way it took it out of us. It changed our relationship to book selling.”
As the pandemic waned, Smith said he and Weaver thought they would bounce back from the physical and emotional toll of the global emergency. But, he said that just has not happened. They both put in long hours at the store.
“We may have the best customers in the world — and we really, really do. But running a retail operation is not for the faint of heart, and it takes a lot of mental and emotional energy to be a couple of introverts in a people-facing industry,” the owners stated in a Facebook post announcing the closing. “This feels like the right time for us to admit that we just don’t have that energy anymore. The Book Table will be closing its doors this year. We’re not filing for bankruptcy, and we’ll be paying every outstanding debt between now and our last day in business (TBD).”
The store will remain open for months, until its lease runs out or all the current inventory is sold. Smith said that he thinks the store could remain open until around Thanksgiving.
“It’s not a speedy process,” Smith said of closing the store. “It’s not within a month. It’s going to be at least several months before we actually close. We have a lot of inventory here. There’s a lot of great books here.”
Smith said that the store has about 60,000 books on its shelves and another 20,000 in the stockroom. Currently all books are 10% off the previously marked price.
The store is currently profitable and has been consistently profitable since it opened, he said.
Customers and fans of the store flocked to the Book Table in the days after the announcement about closing. Customers extol loving the feel of the store and the personal attention they receive. Oak Park resident Al Gini, a professor emeritus of philosophy and business ethics at Loyola University Chicago, said he has been a steady and frequent customer since the Book Table opened July 26, 2003.
Gini, 80, who said he buys about eight books a month from the Book Table, called the store after he heard it was closing.
“I just called them and yelled at them, and my comment was ‘damn it you could have waited until I was dead,’” Gini said, adding that he was joking with them.
Gini and other regulars express a love for the selection of books and the atmosphere at the Book Table.
“It was comfortable to go in there, they have a range of books,” Gini said.
Gini said that the store has fostered a sense of community, and that the owners and staff are all readers and anxious to recommend books.
“It was a place to gather,” Gini said. “I’d go in there to buy two books but I’d leave there 45 minutes later because I had two better conversations.”
Gini and others praise the store’s wide selection.
“They had the best sellers of today, yesterday, and 20 years ago and if it wasn’t there they could get it for you the next day,” Gini said.
The store has catered to a wide range of tastes. It has been particularly strong in art and architecture books, fiction, history, current events and politics but has also had a large children’s section and books from all genres.
“It’s hard to find a neighborhood store that has Renaissance taste; that has broad taste and broad interest, and with a staff that reads,” Gini said.
Tayler Garis, a fourth year medical student at Loyola, has been a fan of the store since she moved to Oak Park as she attended medical school.
“It’s just been a staple,” Garis said after buying “The Selected Works of Audre Lorde.” I think that I pop in at least once a month just out of curiosity to see what the rotation is. I’m pretty bummed that they’re closing. I mean I’m glad it’s on their terms, but I’m definitely going to miss it.”
Garis said that she has loved browsing at the store and enjoys the displays and recommendations.
Meg Hofflander bought seven books at the Book Table on Aug. 8, the day after the closing announcement. She usually buys horror books and graphic novels.
Hofflander said that she prefers buying books from independent bookstores rather than off of Amazon or at chain bookstores – even if it is sometimes a little more expensive.
“I just like supporting independent bookstores,” Hofflander said.
When the Book Table opened in 2003, it was a quirky used book store that laid out books on tables.
“We were the funny, little used and bargain bookstore that happily existed and co-existed with the Borders and Barbaras and The Magic Tree Bookstore that were all within a couple of blocks of either direction of us because we all were each doing our own thing.”
But after the bookstores around it closed, the Book Table expanded and evolved.
“The store that we were before Borders closed is very different from the store that evolved after Borders closed,” Smith said.
Smith and Weaver have cared about their staff. Most stayed with the store for years. The owners provide 100% employer-paid health insurance for their employees, a rarity today.
The Book Table will not be the only locally owned area bookstore to close this year. This summer, Centuries and Sleuths bookstore, which was in Forest Park, closed.
However, a small, new and used bookstore, The Pile, located at 7117 B Roosevelt Road in Berwyn, opened in February.
Other than the Book Table, the only other bookstore in Oak Park is The Looking Glass, which sells used books at 823 S. Oak Park Ave.
Smith said while he is not interested in selling the Book Table, he hopes another bookstore will open in downtown Oak Park.
“We have no plans to sell the store,” Smith said. “We plan to sell out the store and walk away but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be nice for another bookstore to open up in downtown Oak Park, whether it be in this location or another location. I think this community clearly wishes to support one. I think the love that you have seen since our announcement shows you that need and desire that is here. Our customers are among the best in the country. I will put them up against any of them and I think they do deserve a bookstore. It’s just not going to be Rachel and I that run that bookstore anymore.”
Smith and Weaver, who live just a block from the store, say they don’t know what they will do after it closes.
“We do not have the plan for the day after,” Smith said. “We’re focused, still, on the store. And, as always, that is our only focus.
“The day we shut the doors … then we can think about focusing on something else.”
Bob Skolnik is a freelancer.
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