Now it's Frugal Muse

Frugal Muse announced last week they're closing their Northgate location, confirming six months' rumors of their demise. I can't say I was surprised -- the store has been in more and more disarray over my last few trips, no doubt a result of cutting staff costs to the bone. I'm sorry to see them go, despite how active they've been in the "No TWLTL" campaign.

When asked about the closure, co-owner Andrew Gaylor had a familiar story:

Gaylor said recent improvements to Northgate, while welcome, didn’t seem to increase customer traffic, which started falling noticeably for Frugal Muse about five years ago, he noted, and accelerated in the last year or two.

“We’re not blaming anybody,” Gaylor said. “We understand the market. We’re in a troublesome business. We’re competing with Kindle and Amazon.”

Tom Dorn gave the same timeframe in May. There's no question the recession hit these stores hard, and our jobless recovery hasn't pumped much money into the neighborhood economy.

I can understand how hard it's been trying to bounce back these past five years, but when you can't beat Amazon on price or selection, service is all you have left. I fear that once the recession pushed Frugal Muse to cut staff, the writing was on the wall.

This has gotten me thinking about the broader economic challenges we face on the Northside. More on that in my next post.

Update 9/25: Maybe Amazon isn't the bogeyman it's assumed to be, at least with independent bookstores. The ones that build themselves into a destination seem to be thriving. Unfortunately for Frugal Muse, they were too far behind the trend.