Over the weekend, The Fool in the Pool had a swim meet at the UCSC campus pool.  After dropping him off on Saturday morning, I went to downtown Santa Cruz to get some breakfast at a popular local spot called Zachary's.  Zachary's has, by far, the best breakfast menu and I highly recommend anyone who visits downtown Santa Cruz to make a stop there [link to review].

I arrived at the downtown parking lot at about 7:45 am and headed toward Zachary's passing by the Borders store.  I remembered the chain was having financial trouble and thought this particular store would probably survive since it was close to the University of California campus and Santa Cruz has a reputation for intellectuals. 

After enjoying a great breakfast, I headed back out onto Pacific Avenue toward the Bookshop Santa Cruz that opened at 9 am.   By this point, it was raining quite heavily and I was soaked.  I crossed the street to walk under the Borders eaves and noticed the signs going up saying it was closing.  An employee was hanging signs from the café portion of the store on the second level.

It was hard to believe that a store that had plenty of customers during the weekends could be slated for closing.  I remembered having several gourmet coffees and spending hours in the store browsing the sheves.  Although Santa Cruz does have a reputation for the locals to patronize local businesses, this store held its own.  The café was always packed on the weekends even though there is a Starbucks and Peet's as well as two other local coffeehouses on Pacific Avenue.

I will admit that I love the Bookshop Santa Cruz and have gotten several of my books signed by authors that stop there on a book tour, but Borders will be missed.

On a side note, my dear readers can see a difference in the weather between the two photographs of the Borders store front.  On Saturday, the rain was torrential, but by Sunday, the sun came out and the weather was enjoyable.  Both photographs were taken by me during the weekend of February 19^th and 20^th of 2011.