As owners of the Tattered Cover weighed offers from prospective buyers to bail the beloved bookstore out of bankruptcy, they celebrated a big order they believe shows the brand is still strong.
The board of Bended Page, an investment group that bought the bookstore in 2020, was meeting this week to consider bids from people interested in buying the 52-year-old Denver bookstore chain, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late 2023.
Board members had scheduled an auction for Wednesday, but canceled it to continue discussions with the bidders, Bended Page said in a statement.
“This supports the company’s strategic direction toward achieving the best possible outcome for the future of Tattered Cover. The company still has the option of going forward with an auction later,” the company said.
Bended Page declined to disclose details about the bids from “multiple parties,” but BusinessDen reported in May that eight people or companies had expressed interest in Tattered Cover, one of the country’s best-known independent bookstores.
“The discussions are ongoing right now,” said Brad Dempsey, a bankruptcy attorney and CEO of Bended Page. “There are a lot of moving parts to it.”
The next step will be to ask the U.S Bankruptcy Court for the District of Colorado to approve the sale of Tattered Cover to one of the bidders.
Dempsey said an order worth approximately $227,000 by DSST Public Schools, a network of STEM middle and high schools in Denver and Aurora, is a validation of work by Bended Page and employees to keep Tattered Cover going.
“It’s a demonstration that the core business of Tattered Cover is alive and well, that confidence with our customers is there,” Dempsey said.
The order is for about 26,000 books for 16 schools. Dempsey isn’t sure that it’s the biggest single order in the store’s 50-plus-year history.
“But I can say it’s the largest single order that we’ve had in anyone’s memory in our store, which goes back a long time,” he added.
Tattered Cover is working with nine different vendors, most of which had the bookstore on a credit hold last year because of its shaky finances. “We would never have been able to even bid for this order last year,” Dempsey said.
“All 67 of our book sellers are very excited about this and looking forward to fulfilling this order,” Dempsey said, referring to Tattered Cover’s employees.
“We just really believe deeply in investing in our communities and having strong community partnerships,” said Katherine Kihs, director of humanities for DSST. “We wanted to go with Tattered Cover as a community partner, hoping that could bring about opportunities and support for a community we really care about.”
Tattered Cover filed for reorganization less than a year after the death of the bookstore’s pioneering former owner, Joyce Meskis. She bought the store in 1974 when it was a small shop in Denver’s Cherry Creek North neighborhood. It grew it into a favorite gathering place and space where readers could settle in comfortable arm chairs and cozy nooks while building a national reputation for fighting censorship.
In 2015, Meskis announced plans to sell the Tattered Cover bookstores. Book-industry veterans Len Vlahos and his wife Kristen Gilligan acquired controlling interest in the business in 2017.
Bended Page bought the struggling company in 2020. Tattered Cover closed three of its seven stores and eliminated roughly a quarter of the company’s jobs in late 2023. The parent company put the bookstore up for sale in March.
“There’s a lot of optimism. A lot of things are hard to value: the name, the brand and also the potential,” Dempsey said.
But he believes the big book order by Denver and Aurora public schools shows Tattered Cover is capable of rebuilding the industry’s trust and relationships.
“The timing is good on that end. This sale couldn’t have come at a better time.”
