The Old School Otaku Lounge

usamimi wrote:I'm assuming around the same time as the other location, or soon after, if it was their landlord giving them problems? That or when the bubble burst in the 00s wouldn't surprise me.

2007 sounds like the anime bubble bursting and potentially causing landlord issues.

Purely speculating here, but it's possible their lease was tied to a percentage of revenue so riding the boom years, they had reasonably high leases (compared maybe to year-over-year or year-to-date) but when the anime market in the US started to tumble in 2006 or 2007, they had proportionally less revenue coming in. I'm not sure what the various Texas real estate markets were like prior to economic crisis in 2008, but possible that there might have been some early issues affecting them there, too.

It can depend on the location as well. If the store was in a 'strip' mall, and tenants were leaving and the landlord was having trouble filling space, it's not uncommon for a landlord to foolishly raise the rent, which often results in the store closing.

People always seem to think the 'other guy' has infinite money. "well, sell more stuff! Raise prices! Cut staff!" and that sort of thing only works for a very little time. If you can't sell your stuff (wrong shows usually) at the prices they were, raising prices won't do jack. Staff, places like that it wasn't unusual for the part timers to be working ONLY for store credit. (pretty darn illegal)