Crazy Wisdom Bookstore plans to close its Main St. location on February 15, owners Bill Zirinsky and Ruth Schekter announced in November.

The business was founded thirty-nine years ago, and the couple have owned it for more than thirty years.

The bookstore business itself may be sold, or another business may go into the building, which is not for sale, the couple said.

The Crazy Wisdom Journal, available in print and online, and a biweekly e-zine, launched eighteen months ago, will continue online. Zirinsky says Crazy Wisdom also will keep control of its four websites.

“There is a relentlessness to a retail business–open 7 days a week, 360 days a year, and to the hamster-wheel aspect of staffing and management issues,” the couple wrote on Facebook. “Our own family has grown up, and we’re in our 60’s, and we’re ready to look out upon a new and different horizon.”

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Collected Works, known for its artful clothing and accessories, plans to close when the holidays are over, although it has not set a definite end date.

In an email to customers, owner Irene Patalan said she plans to retire after forty-four years in business. Patalan and Rich Thompson opened the shop in fall, 1977, and it operated from a series of locations before moving into the Marketplace Building on Detroit St. twenty years ago.

Patalan said she prized the relationships she nurtured with her customers, which span multiple generations.

“It has been a fun, exciting labor of love,” Patalan wrote.

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Andrew Stevick plans to shut his Kerrytown lunch counter by the end of December. Loomi, named after a method for preserving lemons, began as a food cart in the Farmers Market in 2018, serving Middle Eastern, Turkish, South American, and Indian dishes. Stevick moved indoors to the former Kosmo Deli spot the following year (Observer, July 2019).

Loomi initially bustled, with the scent of its fragrant cooking greeting shoppers who entered from the center’s parking lot doors. But pandemic restrictions prompted Stevick to refocus on carryout.

Stevick wouldn’t discuss his immediate plans. “Right now, my focus is on executing great food while we wrap it up,” he emailed.

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