After a four-year run as one of Downtown Cleveland’s only bookstores, Clevo Books on Euclid Avenue is set to say goodbye.
By June 30, owner Cathyrn Siegal-Bergman will close up shop completely. In the meantime, she has been liquidating her remaining inventory, largely made up of books in translation.
What began as an optimistic move from the 5th Street Arcades to a larger space in the the former RISE gym spot descended into dire straits for a literary spot that struggled to maintain clear profits (and pay rent) as a specialty bookshop. The situation had Siegal-Bergman searching for other ways of making money: shifting into a nonprofit, hosting more events, even planning for a $20,000 wine bar addition.
“That didn’t happen,” she told Scene on Thursday. “The more time it took to try to build up a second stream of revenue, the less money I had to support the store in place. And there aren’t enough people in Cleveland to keep this place open. And if there are, they don’t come in.”
Clevo’s closing contrasts with a pretty decent past year for Cleveland’s literary scene.
Since last summer, Parallel Books opened up in Hingetown; The Checkered Shelf opened in the old Appletree Books in April; and last November, Dave Ferrante reopened his Visible Voice Books in Ohio City.
Siegal-Bergman, a translator by trade, said she’s planning to keep Clevo as an online-only business for the time being, keeping front-and-center its speciality in foreign works. She said she’s also open to entertaining an angel investor or new owner to take over the shop.
The block between East 9th and East 12th seems finicky for small businesses, with a majority of its storefronts vacant. High rents and meager foot traffic have kept retail spaces in The Statler, The Athlon and at 1110 Euclid empty for years despite Downtown’s steady growth in population.
A reality that seems to conflict with larger trends. Last year, Destination Cleveland reported another slight uptick in visitors to the city, following increases in 2023 and 2024. The boom—tied mostly to large sporting events and concerts—even led Destination Cleveland CEO David Gilbert to pronounce last year that “travel is back.”
But tourism, and the attendant foot traffic, hasn’t seemed to touch retail spaces outside Downtown’s entertainment districts. At least in Siegal-Bergman’s mind.
Yet, even though Clevo is leaving (for now), Siegal-Bergman said she feels sated at some of the fringe successes she’s seen, from acting as host on Literary Cleveland’s Poetry Crawl to selling locally-published works and introducing Clevelanders to books in translation they wouldn’t have been introduced to otherwise.
“That was my mission. And my vehicle was literature,” she said. “And so that’s what I thought I could make a business out of.”
“And I still think I can,” she said. “I just don’t think I can do it in Downtown Cleveland.”
Clevo Books is selling off its merchandise, books and furniture at a 20 percent cash discount until the end of June.
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