The End Has Officially Arrived for Denver’s Great Tattered Cover Books

**UPDATE - June 18, 2024**

It's official: Barnes & Noble will be taking over Denver's Tattered Cover in a $1.83 million buyout. Tattered Cover will keep it's name; and according to the Denver Post, most of the 70 employees that Tattered Cover has.

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One of the most beloved businesses in Denver, if not all of Colorado, is Tattered Cover, a 50+ year-old independent bookstore. It may be time for fans to start saying "goodbye."

The internet and the pandemic. If there are two things you could put your finger as to how things have gone "downhill" for Tattered Cover over the years.

People are buying less physical books, and if they are more and more are doing so online; the pandemic, as with many businesses, hurt the bookseller tremendously. In the end, you can't take away that Tattered Cover has been loved by its fans.

Tattered Cover opened its first location in 1971 in Cherry Creek North; in 1974 Joyce Meskis bought the store, running and expanding the business until 2017, when she retired.

RELATED: Colorado's Favorite Book by Dr. Suess

In 2020, Tattered Cover was sold to a group of Denverites committed to keeping Tattered Cover a Denver and Colorado institution; at that time there were eight locations across the state, today there are four.

• Denver - 2526 East Colfax Avenue.
• Denver - 1701 Wynkoop Street (Union Station.)
• Aurora - 2501 Dallas Street, Suite 144 (Stanley Marketplace.)
• Littleton - 7501 Santa Fe Drive (Aspen Grove.)

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Barnes & Noble May Take Over Ownership of Colorado's Tattered Cover

In the midst of bankruptcy, according to the Denver Gazette, major book retailer Barnes & Noble is said to have made a bid for Tattered Cover. If that were to go through, that would be the end of Tattered Cover, as we've known it for over 50 years.

Yes, Barnes & Noble may keep the name, calling the stores "Barnes & Noble's Tattered Cover," or something like that, but it wouldn't' be the same. If you are a fan of Denver and Colorado history, now would be the time to stop in.