St. Johns bookseller worries about her neighborhood business, and others

book1.JPGNena Radwah, owner of St. Johns Booksellers, hands change to her daughter, Lucy, 7, on the shoulders of store clerk Robert Lewis. Between the recession and competition, Radwah worries about the future of her store and other local businesses, and what that means for their neighborhoods. âÂÂIf I close, I have to look my neighbors in the eye and explain why,âÂÂ she says.
Nena Rawdah, the owner of St. Johns Booksellers, doesn't want to sound whiny or melodramatic.

She readily acknowledges that she's made mistakes during her five years running this small, independent North Portland bookstore. Facts are facts, though: Her store is dying, and there's plenty of blame to go around. Rawdah shares some. So do the rest of us.

A bookstore seemed like a great way to make a living back when Rawdah and a friend went into business together in 2005 with fewer than 2,000 volumes and a microloan from Mercy Corps' local economic development arm. Rawdah lives in St. Johns and figured the neighborhood, up and coming but still far enough from downtown that a trip to Powell's is a major endeavor, could use and support a place similar to Annie Bloom's, the Multnomah Village institution where she used to work. She imagined a brightly lit space with a healthy mix of new and used books and a schedule packed with readings and special events.

The schedule is packed, but other things haven't worked out as planned. The business partnership dissolved acrimoniously a few years in. The recession turned a shaky business, profit-making but still debt-ridden, into an endangered one. Regular customers bought fewer books. Casual customers bought elsewhere.

That's not a new story to small businesses in general or small bookstores in particular. What's unusual is how upfront Rawdah is being about her quandary. She began pleading with customers to help last winter and has used Facebook to outline the financial realities: Customers, she wrote this week, are spending an average of $175 a day at St. Johns Booksellers. To break even, she needs sales of at least $225.

She's already stopped advertising, cut back new orders and trimmed her staff down to one employee, who works just 10 hours a week so she can go sell at school book fairs and other community events. She hasn't paid herself since December 2008; her husband supports Rawdah and their two children through construction consulting work, but they've sunk plenty of their own money, including part of a life insurance payment after her mother died of lung cancer last year, into the store.

book2.JPGNena Radwah, owner of St. Johns Booksellers, knows most of her customers and their reading habits.
"You have to start asking yourself, 'When does it become irresponsible to keep going?'" Rawdah said. "I know we're not the only ones going through this. I'm acting like the squeaky wheel because I live in this neighborhood. If I close, I have to look my neighbors in the eye and explain why."

Running a small business is tough even in boom times. Almost everything a business owner can do to lure new customers - lowering prices, advertising more, giving away gift certificates, making the store and storefront more appealing - costs money. In a recession, the point of diminishing returns on those sorts of investments arrives much faster: Stores donate gift certificates to school auctions, for example, because in addition to caring about their community, owners figure someone who comes in with a $25 coupon will likely end up spending more.

"Right now, you watch them come as close as they can to $25 without going over," Rawdah said. "It's frustrating, but understandable: Do you make as much as you did two years ago?"

With all the cuts, the store feels a shade tired. The chalkboard beneath the front counter needs a wash to remove remnants of some previous visitor's doodles. Although the new David Sedaris book sits on a front stand, it is surrounded and practically hidden by used books. Still, if you love bookstores, you could easily spend a good chunk of time exploring this place. The children's section includes a basket of fairy wings and other dress-up supplies, and a cockatiel named Jane Air chirps happily from a cage near the front door. Rawdah will order any book she doesn't have and knows most of her customers by name or reading habits.

"People stick their heads in all the time to say, 'I'm so glad you're here,'" she said. "That's nice, but what I really need is for them to come in and buy something."

That lament gets to the challenge facing the broader region, not just sweet little St. Johns: We talk about wanting vibrant neighborhoods, places where a family's basic needs are all available within an easy walk or bike ride. But sometimes buying local means paying more; it means making a conscious decision to fork over an extra few dollars for the right to buy the latest Stephen King or Jonathan Franzen closer to home from a bookseller who lives down the street and sends her kids to the same school as yours. The recession has made it tougher to walk the walk; I feel guilty every time I pass my neighborhood bookstore, knowing I have 10 new releases on hold at the library.

The death of one small neighborhood business contributes to the decline of others, just as the arrival of one business can give renewed life to its neighbors. When Grammy & Nonna's Toys took over space across the street that had been vacant for three years, Rawdah saw a sudden jump in the number of customers looking for children's books. When Ladybug Coffee closed two blocks away, she noted an immediate drop in the number of people wandering in with coffee cups in their hands to browse. If she shuts down, other businesses along Lombard Street will feel a similar impact.

"A neighborhood isn't one or two businesses. It's a collection," she said.

In that sense, she's making a plea for businesses across Portland. She isn't necessarily asking the rest of us to save her bookstore - although that would be nice - but to make sure that each time we spend money we're thinking about what that choice means.

"You can't blame anyone for trying to save," she said. "People just need to understand that there's a cost to being in a spot like this.

"When you choose to live in a neighborhood because you like the feel but then you spend your money elsewhere, you're hurting your own cause. You're hurting the place that you live."