Barnes & Noble buys US indie bookshop Tattered Cover

In an echo of Waterstones’ approach in the UK, US bookshop chain Barnes & Noble has bought the well-known Denver independent bookshop Tattered Cover. 

Tattered Cover filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late 2023, and agreed to a $1.83m offer in cash this week. The agreement is for Tattered Cover’s four stores. "This creates the nation’s first true hybrid bookstore, a bold and sustainable response to a marketplace that is dramatically different from when Joyce Meskis operated Tattered Cover for so many decades,” Brad Dempsey, interim c.e.o. of Tattered Cover, said in a statement quoted by Publishers Weekly. 

Both Barnes & Noble and Waterstones are owned by Elliott Advisors, with Waterstones having acquired Foyles and Blackwell’s in the UK, as well as running a number of bookshops under different names, including Southwold Books.

Barnes & Noble c.e.o. James Daunt, also m.d. of Waterstones, told Publishers Weekly that if he can keep an independent store alive then he will, highlighting the turnaround at Blackwell’s after investing in IT systems. He said it was likely that Tattered Cover would retain its own ethos with the idea that "store teams run their stores to their own idiosyncrasies while benefiting from the support structures of the wider business, notably in IT and logistics".

Tattered Cover was formerly run by Meskis, who bought the store in 1974 when it was a small shop in Denver’s Cherry Creek North neighbourhood. She sold to bookseller Len Vlahos and his wife Kristen Gilligan in 2017. Bended Page, co-founded by Denver residents, bought it in 2020 but subsequently put the store up for sale in March 2022 amid financial difficulties.