Joyce Meskis, who made the Tattered Cover Book Store a national icon, passed away last December at the age of 80. She grew the Tattered Cover into an internationally recognized bookstore with multiple locations when she retired in 2017. She was one of the great entrepreneurs in modern Denver, and her entrepreneurial instincts were matched by her ideals.
Joyce was a bookseller, but that label does not begin to do her justice.
In 1974, she purchased a small 950-square-foot struggling bookstore in Cherry Creek called The Tattered Cover. She was ambivalent about whether “Tattered” was the best name for selling glossy new books, but over more than four decades she transformed that humble store into what the New York Times ultimately called “the best bookstore in America.”
Like all great entrepreneurs, Joyce had an insatiable curiosity and the capacity for careful observation. What stands out most was her endless persistence in the pursuit of what mattered. In a time when female entrepreneurs were rare, she coupled extreme humility with a quiet assertiveness, a rare combination.
Joyce created an ambiance in the Tattered Cover that felt almost like an extension of one’s home. She blended her own love of books and authors with the culture of Denver to create a casual atmosphere that was unique to the city. Antique furniture, hand-picked by Joyce, and bookcases, in the beginning made by her father, were carefully arranged to create private spaces and cozy hideaways.
Staff provided prompt attention in soft voices that indirectly coaxed customers to speak more softly themselves. The store had the gentle buzz of a large library as staff helped customers find the perfect book.
A great staff was at the heart of the Tattered Cover. Joyce’s respect for her staff and their opinions generated truly great customer service. Staff meetings were sometimes long, but everyone had a voice, and wit and humor were encouraged. Almost every employee shared the belief that selling books was more a calling than a job.
Every new staff member spent two full weeks in an arduous orientation process. The first day of this training was conducted by Joyce, who always began that training with the same statement: “The more books we put in people’s hands, the better the world is.”
There was careful attention to every interface between customers and the store. Each new employee was instructed, while at a cash register, never to proclaim their love for a book being purchased, or how that book had changed their life. While such enthusiasm was encouraged “out in the stacks,” at the cash register the next customer waiting in line might be buying a home repair book. They might feel awkward or diminished at the praise the preceding customer was receiving.
This attention to every aspect of the customer experience created a deep loyalty with Joyce’s employees, and with her patrons. During the holiday season, lines for free gift wrapping grew long. Some customers slipped around the end of the gift-wrapping table and would begin wrapping books for other customers . . . for total strangers! In a jammed bookstore that was throbbing with the excitement and anticipation of the holidays, the fellowship and generosity of spirit was emblematic of Denver’s burgeoning youthful energy. We were becoming a city of book lovers!
Over the years to come, Joyce expanded many times from that first 950-square-foot store in 1974. Soon, customers were volunteering to come help. When they finally moved into the “big store,” a 30,000 square foot space spread over three floors on First Avenue, customers by the droves volunteered to help move all the books into the new location, unheard of community support. Joyce was her typical self, stating, “Of course they would want to help, they want more people to read more books just like we do!”
Last minute shoppers filled the first floor at Tattered Cover looking for gifts on Dec. 24, 1986. Around fifty employees were on hand to handle the shopping crowds. (Photo by The Denver Post)
Suzie Benton places books on shelves at a Tattered Cover bookstore
in the old Neusteters Building at 2930 E. 2nd Ave., on Nov. 16, 1986. (Photo by The Denver Post)
Former President Jimmy Carter sings an autograph at Tattered Cover for Jim Brings, right, on June 9, 1988.
Cater signed hundreds of books as people funneled past his table. (Photo by The Denver Post)
People shop and read at Tattered Cover bookstore in North Cherry Creek on Sept. 3, 1997. (Photo by Lyn Alweis/The Denver Post)
Book buyer Cathy Langer, an employee since 1977, carts books to the shelves at Tattered Cover’s new store in the town center of Highlands Ranch on Nov. 9, 2004. The store opened Nov. 15 of that year. (Photo by Brian Brainerd/The Denver Post)
Tattered Cover Bookstore owner Joyce Meskis left, goes over finishing details with her projects manager Regina Bullock at the new location for Tattered Cover bookstore at 2526 E. Colfax on June 20, 2006. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
The Tattered Cover Bookstore moved on from its Cherry Creek location to its new location on East Colfax Avenue. On June 25, 2006, the store’s magazines were being arranged in the new Newsstand section of the Colfax store by Dale Lemley and Hedi Barathe of Kent News Company. (Photo by Lyn Alweis/The Denver Post)
Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow greets fans while signing his book “Though My Eyes” at the Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver on Saturday June 4, 2011. (Photo by Craig F. Walker/The Denver Post)
Larisa Martin waits to have her book signed by Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow at the Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver on Saturday June 4, 2011. Martin said, “Tim Tebow- he’s a nice dude. He helps orphan kids and I was adopted from Romania.” (Photo by Craig F. Walker/The Denver Post)
Jonathan Dow reads at the Tattered Cover on Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
More than a thousand fans waited hours to get a photo of Bruce Springsteen and a signed copy of his new book, “Born to Run” on Nov. 30, 2016. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
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The Tattered Cover became a meeting place that, long before Starbucks, provided a spot to just hang out, have coffee, and meet friends. The Tattered Cover was Denver. It encompassed everything that this young, relaxed, kick-back city was about.
What a statement this bookstore became for Denver. For decades the Tattered Cover was not only a gathering place, but also a tourist destination, the first place we all took out-of-town visitors. Showing off Denver to national and international travel writers, the first stop for VisitDenver was likewise always the Tattered Cover.
Quite simply, there was nothing else like it in the world. The huge size of it was impossible to believe. For writers coming from New York, London, and every other metropolitan area, here, out at the edge of the Rocky Mountains, 600 miles from any other major city, there could be a bookstore this gigantic. And fun! And so beloved and cherished by the citizens? In an era where Denver was known more for skiing and cowboys, walking around the Tattered Cover’s Cherry Creek flagship store was a point of pride and said everything else a writer needed to know about the emerging Mile High City.
Joyce was relentless in protecting the soul of the store.
The Tattered Cover was more than just a bookstore. It was a store with big open arms and hidden treasures. Lingering at Tattered Cover, with its serenity, was an art form. Attending book-related events, listening to writers talk about their latest stories and latest work, became part of our regular routines.
As the editorial director of Random House told The New York Times in 1989, “It is simply one of the great bookstores of the Western world.”
But Joyce was equally tenacious over our freedom of expression and the First Amendment. “We booksellers are gatekeepers of the expression of ideas,” she told members of the American Booksellers Association in 1991 when she served as the association’s president. Colleagues cite her steady hand through turbulent times as she championed the First Amendment. Employees remember her extraordinarily calm demeanor under pressure.
This was most pointedly on display in 2000 with the sudden and frightening appearance at the store of five police officers with a search warrant, demanding the purchase history of a drug-dealing suspect. Joyce calmly but firmly refused to comply. Such information was, in her mind, protected under the Constitution. She then, still calm, called her lawyer.
The matter proceeded to be litigated in court. Opponents claimed she was shielding a meth-making criminal; supporters knew she was protecting the public’s right to privacy and free speech.
Tattered Cover owner Joyce Meskis and her lawyer Dan Recht arrive at Denver District court where they were granted a restraining order against search by detectives who want to see purchase records the store has. (Photo by Brian Brainerd/The Denver Post)
Dan Recht, an attorney representing the Tattered Cover Bookstore, presents his arguments during a special session of the Colorado Supreme Court at the Brighton High School auditorium on Dec. 5, 2001. The court heard arguments in the Tattered Cover Inc. vs. The City of Thornton case where the Tattered Cover refused to hand over buying records of a customer on First Amendment privacy grounds after being subpoenaed for a criminal case involving a suspect who may have used books purchased to construct a meth lab. (Photo by Glenn Asakawa/The Denver Post)
Tattered Cover Bookstore owner Joyce Meskis, left, listens to arguments by Andy Nathan, an attorney representing the City of Thornton (not pictured) while sitting next to her attorneys Rick Cornfeld, center, and Dan Recht during a special session of the Colorado Supreme Court at the Brighton High School auditorium on Dec. 5, 2001. The court heard arguments in the Tattered Cover Inc. vs. The City of Thornton case. Tattered Cover refused to hand over buying records of a customer after being subpoenaed for a criminal case involving a suspect who may have used books purchased to construct a meth lab. (Photo by Glenn Asakawa/The Denver Post)
Tattered Cover owner Joyce Meskis, left, is congratulated by supporter Janet MacKenzie after a press conference on April 8, 2002, in the company’s LoDo location to discuss Tattered Cover’s victory in the Colorado Supreme Court. MacKenzie organized a group of friends of Tattered Cover to support Meskis who was fighting an order to give police the records of customer purchases. (Photo by Brian Brainerd/The Denver Post)
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The case was tried in the Denver District Court and let’s just say she and the Tattered Cover prevailed in part, but not completely. Joyce and her lawyers were faced with whether to appeal or not.
A conference call with close to 10 First Amendment experts from around the country was hastily organized. This large group of First Amendment lawyers unanimously urged Joyce not to appeal. They argued that the odds of prevailing were extremely slight, the odds of therefore setting a bad First Amendment precedent were great. Joyce thought for a minute and then calmly and humbly, yet assertively and confidently, said, “But the Court’s opinion is just not right. We must appeal.” Her simply stated perspective flew in the face of every legal expert on that call. Yet, in the end, Joyce was right.
In a stunning precedent-setting decision, the Colorado Supreme Court became the first state Supreme Court in the country to hold that purchasers of books have a constitutional right to privacy.
“Bookstores are places where a citizen can explore ideas, receive information, and discover myriad perspectives on every topic imaginable,” Justice Michael Bender wrote for the Court in 2002. “When a person buys a book at a bookstore, he engages in activity protected by the First Amendment because he is exercising his right to read and receive ideas and information. Any governmental action that interferes with the willingness of customers to purchase books, or booksellers to sell books, thus implicates First Amendment concerns.”
As Joyce told the Denver Bar Association: “Whether you are in agreement or opposition to a political philosophy, you should know what the other side is thinking.” Both access and privacy are paramount, she stressed.
Throughout her career, Joyce rejected the label of free-speech hero. “No,” she said, “I’m a bookseller who still, 50 years after my first bookselling job, gets a thrill out of seeing a person’s eyes light up with the joyful and thoughtful pleasure of reading a book.”
Joyce endlessly pursued what mattered: community, literacy, and the First Amendment. In her quiet way, she taught us all how to make a difference. Her understated commitment to do the right thing rather than being right might help us get through this strange era.
For both of us, it was truly an honor to be considered her friend.
Joyce sold books as a First Amendment champion, an anti-censorship activist, an advocate of readers and reading, the creator of a renowned literary oasis, and as a beloved mentor.
She will be sorely missed.
John Hickenlooper, former governor and current U.S. Senator from Colorado, was a close friend and long-time business partner of Joyce. Dan Recht served as the lawyer for Joyce and The Tattered Cover for more than 30 years. He argued the case before the Colorado Supreme Court and through that process, the two became close friends.
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