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Coles Bookstore
The stores sell, primarily, books, DVDs, kid's toys, games and music CDs. As for history, the first Coles store was opened near the University of Toronto in the 1930s, by two brothers, Jack and Carl Cole. Part of the store's legend is that the Cole brothers were only 11 at the time, and were living in foster homes in Detroit and eventually Toronto. Although they had little amount of money, they were able to open their first store paying rent daily as they could not afford the monthly rent payments. Even with no retail experience, the brother turned their bookstore chain, for a period of time, into the largest bookstore chain in Canada. The brothers also opened a second chain of bookstores called "The World's Biggest Bookstore". After a lengthy period of expansion and success, in 1976, Jack and Carl sold the chain of bookstores to Southam Press. The bookstore chain was merged with SmithBooks in 1994, creating Canada's largest chain at the time. The resulting company, Chapters, Inc., opened Canada's first two book superstores under the Chapters name brand in November 1995. The name Coles, however, remained for the smaller-format bookstores in shopping malls. Since 2001, Coles and its parent company have been owned by Indigo Books and Music.
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