I doubt anyone remembers any of the bookstores near my college warmly given they were just an alternative rip off to the colleges official store.

College town I worked in . . . city development board basically forced out a three-generations family-owned grocery adjacent campus despite it being dearly loved and a huge university tradition. They wanted to put in a strip mall, and they did.

Dude on the board straight up told the local paper that the public's memory in a college town only lasts four years.

He wasn't entirely wrong, but you're not supposed to say it out loud.

College town I work in now is a total steaming craphole compared to what it was like twenty years ago . . . but the college kids have no idea. The way it is now is all they know about it.

Meanwhile, alumni come back to town, come into my shop, and complain endlessly. Yeah, I know. Vote against senseless development? Or put up with it.

Ehh. I only ever went in beginning of the semester to buy, and the end of it to sell. I spent way more time in coffee shops to study. Even the school apparel, I bought at Steve and Barry's. Ulrich's was too expensive.

Our college bookstore options are a really small university-run one that no one goes to or the Barnes and Noble that bought out the local bookstore long before my time. I'm not even sure if the Starbucks in it has reopened since the pandemic.