Faith Family Books and Gifts will be opening soon in Scarborough, Ontario.

To see the text of the complete article from the Quill and Quire, see below.

“A new Christian book retailer rises from R.G. Mitchell’s ashes January 27, 2009 | 6:27 PM | By Danielle Ng-See-Quan

When the Ontario Christian book wholesaler and retailer R.G. Mitchell went into receivership last year, it left a big hole in the faith-based book marketplace. This April, a new retail operation – managed by two former R.G. Mitchell employees – will attempt to fill the void. Faith Family Books and Gifts will be a large – about 12,000 square feet – retail store in Scarborough, stocking Christian books, gift items, and other products. The store will be jointly owned by Larry Willard, publisher of the Pickering, Ontario-based Christian house Castle Quay Books; Kern Kalideen, director of risk management at the Royal Bank of Canada; and Paul Fredericks, president of the Grill-it-Up restaurant chain.

According to Willard, about 50% of the store’s inventory will be books, and about 75% of those books will be Christian-themed. The remaining 25% will be general interest titles….

Willard says, however, that Faith Family Books and Gifts is intended to be more than just a replacement for R.G. Mitchell. “It [will be targeting] their typical clientele … but we have a lot of new product,” he says, adding that the store will also include a coffee bar and a space for staging book and CD launches.

The plan is to expand into a chain, but Willard says they will have to wait and see if the store proves viable first.

The grand opening is planned for April 4.

Meanwhile, the saga of R.G. Mitchell’s dissolution continues. Last week, a public auction was held at the Willowdale store, in which all of the company’s remaining assets – phones, computers, chairs, cash registers – were sold off. According to a former employee, trustees Deloitte & Touche determined that the proceeds of the sale were not enough to pay off the accumulated debt, meaning that the RGM head office and warehouse will have to be sold off, too. See the Quill and Quire at http://www.quillandquire.com/omni/article.cfm?article_id=10473

No tags