Small businesses have it increasingly complicated. In recent times we have become accustomed to seeing closures of “old-fashioned” stores that we grew up with, as in the case at hand: a store in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Sonora Recordsof which, when passing by, we always thought that they were still resisting before the internet and large stores.
In case of Sonora Records It is a store that for decades was open on Imeldo Serís Street to sell cassettes, CDs and vinyl. As the years went by, due to changing times, he had to specialize. In this way, Sonora Discos began to specialize in some genres such as rock and jazz, seeing how, around it, other similar stores closed, until just a few days ago, when the news was known.
The case of Sonora Discos and that of the La Isla bookstore
At the beginning of 2019, also in Imeldo Serís, the La Isla bookstore closed. He did it in the midst of a very complicated economic context, with a crisis, in the midst of the rise of ebooks and electronic commerce with Amazon as a great giant, putting numerous neighborhood bookstores in a lot of trouble.
Located at number 75 Imeldo Serís, in 2014 it had already had to close its store on Robayna Street, being one of those stores that, we thought, would never disappear. As I pointed out NOTICE DIARY When the store was closed, La Isla was founded by José María Celis in 1971, Rexachs was the first name of this appliance store converted into a bookstore and record store.
His farewell letter went viral at the time, as a way of saying goodbye to a store that was part of the memory of all the chicharreros and chicharreras:
“Dear friends of La Isla Libros:
With a heavy heart and a couple of years after our family celebrates half a century with the bookstore open, we send this letter to inform you that our doors are going to close permanently.
We want to heartily thank everyone who has supported us over the years, the clients, collaborators and employees who in some way have become part of our family history.
They have helped us grow as a company, as people, and to develop this beautiful and sacrificial profession at the same time.
From the first moment, our dream was always to create readers. Bring reading and culture to the city of Santa Cruz, and we leave with the peace of mind and satisfaction of having achieved it.
With great gratitude, we take with us countless memories, stories and wonderful people who have enriched all these years of our profession.
Multiple illustrious visits, the endless queues at Christmas and the beautiful chaos that arose during the school campaign…
If there is anyone who wants to share with us the stories, memories or anecdotes related to what has been your bookstore all these years, a guest book is available in our store that we will read with great affection after closing.
After many years of fighting and putting all the effort and enthusiasm we had, we have not been able to prevent this from happening.
When we opened the Imeldo Serís location, 75 to centralize all services in one place, we encountered a terrible crisis that took us all by surprise. We thought that with our work, enthusiasm, determination and patience we would be able to come back, but we have not managed to do so.
There are still many small businesses that continue to fight every day to survive, so we want to take advantage of our closure to encourage Tenerife residents to continue supporting the small businesses that provide satisfaction, closeness, food and personality to our society.
See you forever,
“Book Island”
