Pinellas library cafe owners struggle to stay afloat

The owners of local library cafes say they’ve felt the wrath of the economy.

“The economy is hitting everybody,” said Bernie Dillman, 59, who runs Bernie’s Cafe at Clearwater’s Main Library. “It’s slow, but people are hanging in there.”

His sales average less than $2,000 a month, according to the city’s most recent figures.

And Dalal Mansour, who runs the Bookmark Cafe at Largo Public Library, said things are so tough she won’t be able to pay her $1,752 rent and sales tax to Largo this month.

“We had a big loss. Our sales are not even $100 a day,” said Mansour, 47, whose cafe serves sandwiches, salads, gourmet coffees and pastries.

Source: St. Petersburg Times

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 and is filed under Libraries and Librarianship, Search News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.