Diesel Books to close in Malibu by fall

John Evans, one of the owners of the Diesel bookstores, told the Malibu Times that the Malibu store will soon close for good — the rent is too high and the foot traffic too low in its new spot in the Malibu Country Mart. "The store will close and it won’t be open in the fall. Whether it’ll be closed three weeks, six weeks or nine weeks from now, we don’t know,” Evans said. The inventory has already been marked down. Evans indicated the latest the store will be open is September 21, the paper says.

Evans had said back in December that Diesel Malibu was for sale. In part the owners wanted to focus more time on their stores in the Brentwood Country Mart and in Northern California. The Malibu store moved across the street to its current location in 2011.

Country Mart owner Michael Koss said he was disappointed in Diesel having to close but that he’d given Evans and Reid a fair lease.

“His rent is so phenomenal,” Koss said. “His rent on a square-foot basis is less than half of what the average is in the rest of the shopping center.”

Diesel began exhibiting signs of struggle last year when Evans and Reid put the store up for sale, hoping to attract a local interested buyer. No serious offers came in, according to Evans.

Add Malibu: The story also says that Howdy's restaurant will also be moving out of the Malibu Country Mart and into the space across Pacific Coast Highway vacated long ago by Granita.