Former lawyer buys The Bookies, half-century-old Denver bookstore

Kirstin Gulling is making good on a dream she had as a law student in the early 1990s: owning a bookstore.

The former lawyer will write the next chapter of The Bookies, the Denver bookstore staple that Sue Lubeck opened in 1972.

“It’s exciting in all the ways, especially because I have something to build on,” the first-time bookstore operator said. “There’s a talented community of people who already work and visit here.”

Gulling bought the retail shop from Nicole Sullivan, who took over ownership in 2021 after Lubeck died. Sullivan moved the store from Glendale to its current 7,000-square-foot location at 2085 S. Holly St. in the Virginia Village neighborhood last year and had been looking to sell the store since March.

Neither party disclosed the price of the deal.

“The hard work of turning the business around is mostly behind us,” said Sullivan, who also owned BookBar in the Berkeley neighborhood before closing it in 2023. “The next step is to grow sales and get customers in the door and back in the door. I think Kirstin’s going to be really good at that. New energy, fresh pair of eyes, and also hands-on.”

Sullivan still owns the store’s real estate, which records show she bought for $2.2 million in 2023. She will lease the space to Gulling and The Bookies, which she said does around $1.5 million in sales annually.

Gulling said she wants people to find a “third place” in the community, something bookstores have been throughout her life. When she was attending law school at the University of Michigan, the original location of the now-shuttered Borders was a refuge when she was coming out as lesbian, she said.

Amazon Bookstore Cooperative, the acclaimed Minneapolis feminist retailer, was also a pivotal spot for Gulling.

“It’s been hugely important to my identity, and this opportunity is the perfect marriage of that and what I did when I was raising my five kids,” she said, noting that she homeschooled two of them.

The Bookies mission fits right into that as well, she said.

“You have this long legacy of the bookstore being for educators and young children, and, under Nicole’s leadership, into more of a community space,” Gullling said. “It’s my community. I live down the street, literally over a mile away, and I would love to help it expand on what Nicole has already done here.”

She said not much will change in the short term for the space. She plans on retaining all 23 staffers and to continue holding author events, book clubs and an upcoming teen writing summer camp.

The biggest switch up, she said, will be on the shelves, where Gulling will add a used-book section. She also plans to rearrange them to make more nooks for people to hang out.

“The focus first is going to be to simply ask people what (customers) want,” she said, noting that she’s already surveyed employees. “My vision is to keep The Bookies a warm, welcoming place.”

Since taking over Bookies in 2021, Sullivan said she’s done a lot of work on the store’s back end to bring it up to the 21st century. She shifted ordering, budgeting and other systems to electronic platforms. She also said she got rid of “stale” inventory and expanded the adult titles section.

The biggest change, though, was moving the store from a corner of a strip mall to a stand-alone building. Though expenses stayed more or less the same, margins have improved from 39% to 44% during her four years, she said, in part because the move gave The Bookies more visibility.