The Tattered Cover, a beloved Denver institution and nationally known independent bookstore, has accepted a sales offer from Barnes & Noble, a model for the fictionalized corporate bookstore chain that ran a small independent bookseller out of business in the movie “You’ve Got Mail.”
The 53-year-old Denver business, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late 2023, agreed Monday to accept Barnes & Noble’s offer of up to $1.83 million in cash. The agreement is for Tattered Cover’s four stores and is supported by the bookstore’s parent company, Bended Page.
Under the agreement, the name of the Tattered Cover Book Store and the store’s program of events would continue, according to a motion filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Colorado. The buyer, TC Acquisition Co. LLC, an affiliate of Barnes & Noble Inc., anticipates offering jobs to “substantially all” of Tattered Cover’s roughly 70 employees.
The purchase will cover the $1.6 million in secured claims that Tattered Cover owes. Barnes & Noble will pay $50,000 for back rent and plans to extend the leases on the store’s sites.
The lease on the store’s main location at East Colfax Avenue in Denver will be extended through 2038 and the lease on the store in the Aspen Grove shopping center in Littleton would run through 2030, said Steven Silvers, a spokesman for Bended Page.
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