As BookBar shutters, owner readies new concept, addresses workplace complaints

The plight of independent bookstores in the age of Amazon seems simple: live or die.

But the Jan. 31 closing of BookBar, a drink-and-read concept that opened a decade ago in Denver’s Berkeley neighborhood, is more complicated. Various forces, from burnout and a minimum wage increase to owner Nicole Sullivan’s growing nonprofit and her other bookstore, The Bookies, have made it impossible to continue running BookBar, she said.

On top of that, Sullivan has become controversial in the world of bookselling. She quit the American Booksellers Association last spring in protest of its new policies elevating bookstore employees and condemning racist books — something that she saw as an anti-First Amendment stance — and navigating staff turnover and anonymous social media complaints about BookBar’s workplace culture.

She hasn’t backed down in the face of those, and the success of her other projects hints that she won’t actually be trading work for the quiet life anytime soon.

“Over the past three years I kept thinking, ‘I don’t know if I can continue this,’ ” Sullivan said. “I’ve missed out on so many family and friend things in order to run a business like BookBar.”

The store, which opened in 2013 at 4280 Tennyson St., was unique in the metro area, and there’s a reason for that. Thin margins on both alcohol and book sales instantly set Sullivan’s two-in-one concept on a rough path. As a result she’s barely been able to pay the bills and make payroll over the past decade, she said.

“The final piece was when the announcement came out about the minimum wage increase,” she said, referring to the state law that took effect Jan. 1, requiring employers to pay at least $17.29 per hour. She’s always paid above that, she said, but this latest increase was too high to continue that committment.

“I’ve been attacked by a lot of people for ever bringing this up as part of the decision,” she said. “But it’s simply a fact. We cannot change the price of books and have no control over our margins. It’s hard to make that work.”

BookBar has never turned a profit, Sullivan said. She’s been able to keep it open due to her personal investments, while her other ventures have proven more self-sustaining. Sullivan will dedicate more time to her two children and her husband after she closes BookBar, but she’ll continue with her other big concerns: The Bookies bookstore at 4315 E. Mississippi Ave., which Sullivan bought in 2021, along with her nonprofit organization, BookGive, and publisher BookBar Press (or the 3Bs, as she calls them).

The Bookies, a 50-year-old bookstore that’s mostly staffed by educators, is paying about $11,000 per month to lease its current space and needs to find another one nearby. By contrast, Sullivan owns the building BookBar resides in and is planning on turning it into an yet-to-specified community cultural space — and not necessarily a coffee shop.