Barnes & Noble on Wednesday cut the ribbon on its new Lincoln Park store, as the bookseller continues its store opening spree in Chicago and across the country.
More than a hundred people were lined up down the block ahead of the bookstore’s return to the neighborhood after closing its previous shop on Clybourn and Western avenues last spring due to its lease ending.
Chicago-based author Jeneva Rose was also in attendance, cutting the ribbon and signing copies of her books including “Home is Where the Bodies Are.”
Customers flowed in steadily after the store opened at 10 a.m. to browse books, gifts and records.
“When the lease for our Clybourn bookstore came to an end in 2023, we announced our commitment to finding a new home in the community we had served for the past 26 years,” Barnes & Noble CEO James Daunt said in a statement. “We are overjoyed to be making a swift return to bookselling in the neighborhood.”
The new store, at 651 W. Diversey Pkwy, was formerly occupied by Urban Outfitters and employs several former Barnes & Noble staff.
“Our team is already familiar with our customer base and how we can best serve this community,” said Dianna Todd, store manager of Barnes & Noble Lincoln Park. “We’re extremely excited to elevate local authors and get their books into the hands of readers.”
Barnes & Noble plans to open three more stores in the Chicago area in June. Its new Wicker Park location will be in the Noel State Bank Building, which was previously occupied by Walgreens. The pharmacy chain closed the store at 1601 N. Milwaukee Ave. in January 2023. Another location will open in the shopping center Village Square of Northbrook and the Prairie Market retail center in Oswego.
“Chicago has been an important market for us,” said Janine Flanigan, senior director of store planning and design at Barnes & Noble. “We’re looking forward to getting our bookstores back there. It’s a wonderful market.”
At 8,300 square feet, the Lincoln Park store is smaller than the previous one, which was 16,000 square feet. “The fixtures are different, which changes the capacity of the bookcases. But we can be more efficient in less bookcases,” Flanigan said.
In the past 15 years, Barnes & Noble closed a number of stores but it’s now experiencing a resurgence with sales at existing stores “exceptionally strong,” according to the company.
In 2023, it launched more new bookstores in a single year than it had from 2009 to 2019. Its Lincoln Park location is one of more than 50 bookshops that it expects to open this year across the U.S. Barnes & Noble operates about 600 stores in the U.S.
The company credits its success to a strategy of giving control of each store to local booksellers, among other factors.
Flanigan said Daunt, who became CEO in 2019, “significantly changed how we operate.” Daunt is also CEO of Waterstones, the largest retail bookseller in the United Kingdom, as well as gift retailer Paper Source. He is credited with turning around Waterstones and making the once-flagging bookstore chain profitable.
“Before, stores were very corporate driven,” she said. “They looked the same. There were paid spots for books and they didn’t necessarily relate to each other.” Now, stores can choose which books to feature and local communities are better represented.
Flanigan also said TikTok has boosted sales and that “BookTok” posts, videos focused on books and literature, help drive people into stores.
The Lincoln Park store is one of six Barnes & Noble bookstores to open in May. The bookseller also opened a new store in Sandy, Utah on Wednesday.
