Friday, April 12, 2013

First they came for the new bookstores...

Times change, as David Allen notes in a Daily Bulletin article:

One of the Inland Valley's few remaining used bookstores is closing its doors. The Book Exchange, a used book store at 4847 Arrow Highway in Montclair, has been in business for 30 years, said owner Luisa Conner, who bought it in 1997. The last day of business is Saturday.

The closure of a used bookstore is no surprise.

Conner said her store was affected by the shift to online sales and e-reading, the same factors that have hurt other bookstores.

So what happens to the books?

After the close of business Saturday, remaining books will be boxed up and donated to libraries.

This assumes, of course, that the libraries (a) are still around, and (b) if they are still around, that they're actually stocking deadwood books.

Monday, April 8, 2013

The fourth E is Ending (Ramon's Cactus Patch is closed)

A few weeks ago, I wrote a three-part series of posts describing a Saturday in downtown Ontario. The third post in that series, The third E is Eating, described my first-ever visit to Ramon's Cactus Patch, a Mexican restaurant at the corner of San Antonio and Mission that has been in existence (at various locations) since the 1930s.

Toward the end of the post, I wrote:

I just regret that I waited so long to visit the place.

I really would have regretted it if I had waited a few more weeks to visit. According to David Allen, the restaurant is now closed, since Ramon has decided to retire.

After all, he's 99 years old.

Now some business plan extensive transition periods. Take NBC, which has decided (again) that Jay Leno will leave the Tonight Show and transition to a new host next year. But in the case of Ramon's Cactus Patch, the decision to finally close the restaurant (due to Ramon's health) was made rather quickly:

Customers who ate there on what turned out to be the last day [Saturday, March 30] had no idea the restaurant would close.

[Ramon's children] Roque and Ramona didn't either, although they knew the end was near.

The restaurant is typically closed Sunday and Monday. During a family meeting Sunday, they decided not to reopen Tuesday.

"It was very abrupt," Roque admitted.

I'm glad that I made it when I did. Hopefully, the family will be able to follow the suggestion that David Allen made, and open the restaurant for one last farewell to its customers.