Sydney Loses Beloved Institution: Bookshop Darlinghurst to Close After 43 Years

It is with a heavy heart that we share: after more than four decades of serving Sydney’s LGBTQ+ community, The Bookshop Darlinghurst will close its doors.

Its final day of trading is expected to be around 24 December 2025.

This announcement marks the end of a chapter not just for a bookstore, but for a gathering place, safe haven, and cultural landmark.

In a statement to the community, owner Charles Gregory wrote:

“Since 1982, The Bookshop Darlinghurst has proudly served Sydney’s LGBTIQ+ communities – a safe, bold, and welcoming space where queer stories have lived on the shelves and in people’s lives. I am very sad to say that after 43 years, this historic chapter is coming to an end.

“When I took over as the new owner in June 2024, my vision was to relocate and reimagine The Bookshop for a new generation, with a larger space across the street in the redevelopment of Oxford & Foley by Toga where we could hold events. Unfortunately, the development – the new shop was to be housed in the third and least-finalised of those buildings – has faced repeated delays. What was meant to be a move in late-2024 has been pushed back 3 times, and has now been pushed again into 2026. Even that timing, as far as I can tell, remains uncertain.

“These delays have meant the shop has missed out on vital peak trading periods – Christmas, summer holidays, and Mardi Gras – and it resulted in the shop having to look for new office space at an extra cost, while rent for the shop itself, and other expenses, climbed considerably. The financial strain, including significant funds already outlaid towards complying with development consent obligations for the fit-out in what is a heritage space in the Toga building, combined with a quiet winter of trade, has simply become too great.

“Rather than attempt to wait it out for what will be an expensive fit-out in a delayed development whose opening date is now, ultimately, unknowable, I have made the very difficult decision to close.

“Final day of trading: probably 24 December 2025.

“Between now and Christmas, I will aim to continue to serve the community with the same spirit the shop has done for 43 years. I will try as best as I can to keep stocking the titles that matter. I will continue to support local writers and publishers where possible, including by ensuring existing events will go ahead and by stocking local books. If you have pre-ordered and paid for a title, this will be honoured, as will gift vouchers. If you have loyalty points, please use them.

“Most importantly, this is your last chance to buy from the shop.

“Every purchase between now and Christmas helps me meet what have become considerable financial obligations, and for The Bookshop Darlinghurst, which has survived for an age, to say goodbye with dignity. A fire sale won’t begin immediately – the shop will continue to trade as normal for the time being. But as noted above, with an expected close date of Christmas Eve, there will be a final opportunity for you to shop up until the end of the year: a chance to fill your shelves, share books with friends and family, and experience a piece of local history for the last time.

“The Bookshop Darlinghurst has been more than a store. It has been a meeting place, a refuge, and a beacon for queer literature for more than four decades. I am truly sorry I was not able to carry on this legacy. I invite everyone who has loved this space – or who has yet to discover it – to visit before we close the doors.”

When asked what he would like to say to the Star Observer readers who have been picking up the magazine from Bookshop Darlo’s shelves for decades, Gregory said: “I would say that I am so sorry I couldn’t figure out how to continue it on.”

He also went into more detail about the Oxford & Foley development delays and issues.

“It took so much time and money to organise the lease agreement with Toga (I negotiated that over a year ago now), to get plans drawn up for that space, and then to put in all the required documents for the DA application, which required extra documentation (and extra costs) because it’s a heritage building,” Gregory explained to Star Observer. “The DA application actually got approved just this week, which is extra sad.”

“But coupled with a slow winter (the rain did not help), extra rent costs, and everything in between we just ran out of money, and the fit out is likely to cost a lot.

“After that all that, Toga keeps pushing the date for handover back, to the point where I can’t trust any dates they give me.  They say now that February 2026 is the handover, but I just don’t think it will be.  And all that not knowing means I can’t plan anything.  And trying to find a new space and all the costs and time and energy that takes – well, it all became a bit much.

“I can see the outpouring of love for the shop though, and it really really makes me sad.  I loved this shop from when I first came to Sydney 25 years ago and worked in it.”

The storied history of The Bookshop Darlinghurst

The roots of The Bookshop Darlinghurst reach back to 1982, when Les McDonald and his then partner Wayne Harrison transitioned their successful mail-order LGBTQI+ book business into a physical shop.

Initially located on Crown Street in Surry Hills, the shop relocated to Oxford Street in 1984, anchoring it at the heart of Sydney’s queer precinct.

From its early days, Bookshop Darlo has been more than a commercial space. In the dark years of the AIDS crisis, it became a hub of community, care, information and refuge, offering books, resources, connection and solace. Over time, it established itself as a safe and visible space for queer stories – fiction, memoir, theory, history, erotica, poetry – and for queer people to see themselves, learn, gather, talk, breathe.

Under McDonald’s stewardship, the Bookshop weathered the shifting sands of retail, digital transformation, pandemic pressures, and changing foot traffic on Oxford Street. In more recent years, it hosted author events, literary dinners, book launches and community gatherings – efforts to sustain connection, visibility and business.

In June 2024, McDonald handed the reins to longtime devotee Charles Gregory, who had worked at the shop many years earlier and saw in Darlo a place of personal meaning and community purpose.

The enormous void that Bookshop Darlo leaves

For many in Sydney’s LGBTQIA+ community – and beyond – Bookshop Darlo has not been “just a bookstore.” It has been a refuge, an education centre, a social anchor, and a symbol of queer permanence in a city that has not always been safe or welcoming. Staff over the years have spoken of the many people who – in moments of fear, confusion, isolation – came into the shop, asked for help, cried, found a book, and left changed.

From early clandestine pamphlets to modern trans poetry, from memoirs of struggle and joy to erotica and romance — its shelves held them all. As Grey Matters columnist Peter Benn recently reminded us, dedicated gay and queer bookshops are precious custodians of our stories—places where queer life is gathered, held, disseminated, and defended.

To Charles Gregory: thank you. Thank you for taking on this mantle, for being willing to try, for fighting to keep the doors open. To Les McDonald: thank you for nearly half a century of devotion, resilience, love and labour to ensure that queer stories had a home, and that queer people had a place to gather, read, learn, heal, imagine.

We mourn the loss already, but we also celebrate what Darlo has meant to so many, across several generations of queer people — and we commit ourselves to whatever comes next: new queer spaces, new bookstores, renewed community.

Let’s walk in now — while there is still time — and give thanks, say farewell, and honour what it stood for.