Beloved Montreal bookstore S.W. Welch has officially closed

The beloved Montreal used bookstore S.W. Welch has officially closed.

“Thank you all for your support and sympathy, the years of buying and selling that most precious of objects, the stories, the human connections made and lost. There was never a day I did not want to be there.”

Yesterday, the owners accepted an offer for all the books that remained at the store following a month of selling off their stock at a 50%. Stephen Welch broke the news of his imminent retirement, and the closure of the St-Viateur Street shop in a Facebook post on June 12, saying, “The lease is up at the end of July, no chance of reprieve. S.W. is ready to retire.”

S.W. Welch was famously threatened with closure in February of 2021, when they posted an À Louer sign in the window following an attempted 150% rent hike by then-owners Shiller Lavy — who have since put up most of their Mile End properties for sale, including the building housing S.W. Welch.

When the building was sold back in January, shop owner Welch predicted that the lease — which Shiller Lavy extended by two years back in 2021 due to a public outcry over the proposed rent hike — would not be renewed this summer, and that the store would close.

S.W. Welch has been in its current location for 15 years. The store, established in 1984, was previously located in two other spaces in Montreal.

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