This month will mark the final chapter for one local Davis bookstore. Sweet Briar Books, located at 654 G Street, will close following a liquidation sale, which begins Friday.
Sales on the entire inventory – books, CDs and DVDs – will start at 20 percent off. Owner Sharon Segal is also selling 42 maple bookcases and 10 maple tables with cubbies. Segal said she hopes to be done with the sale by Dec. 24, taking down the shelves by the last week of December.
Segal said she decided to close the store after a dramatic drop in sales, which started around last Christmastime and continued into 2011.
“I have to close because of a combination of a bad economy, a drop in sales in the book world in general and a high vacancy rate in my mall,” Segal said. “There are four empty storefronts out of nine available spaces here and mine will be the fifth.”
Segal, a native to Seattle, WA. and resident of Davis since 1989, said when she first moved into the space on June 1, 1996, business was good at the mall.
She said she is uncertain about her own future plans once the store is closed.
“I’m hopelessly out of date,” she said. “I’ll have to retrain for something else, as I’ve been a bookseller for 16 years.”
“The community has been supportive the entire time my store has been open. I just want to thank people for all of their encouragement and support. This is a special community and the store wouldn’t have lasted as long as it did in any other community.”
Segal will maintain the business’ normal hours, until its closure, which are Monday through Thursday 10:00 a.m. to 6 p.m., Friday and Saturday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday noon to 5 p.m.
ANGELA SWARTZ can be reached at city@theaggie.org.
Editor’s Note: Changes were made in the online article to reflect the correct closing date and hours of operation. The Aggie regrets these errors.
This is really unfortunately. Sweet Briar Books always had really great prices on used and new books and was a unique used bookstore treasure in Davis. I am sad to see them close. 🙁