Birchalls employee Debbie Wells started at the store in 2002 and said the Tilley family had “been great to work for”.

“A gentleman came in yesterday morning and he had been coming here all his life, his dad used to stop out the front when he was seven-years-old and he would run in and spend his pocket money, so he actually just came back in to reminisce,” she said.

Cheryl Brown, who has worked at the Brisbane Street site since 1982, said there was nothing else like Birchalls in Australia.

“It’s a family business that employees families, most of us have had family members being employed with us,” she said.

She recently had an 88-year-old customer recollect her favourite times at the store.

“She was sad we were closing because she had been coming here all her life … it’s an icon, it’s been in Tasmania for as long as anybody can remember and anybody in Tasmania, if you say the name Birchalls they know what it is.”

Simone Doolan has been with Birchalls for 25 years and has heard many stories working on the checkout recently.

“There’s a lot of really sad people saying they had come here forever and where would they come and get their bits and pieces that they always used to get from us because this was a one-stop-shop for your gifts, your cards, your paper and everything else,” she said.

The trio said customers were also quite concerned for the staff and what they would be doing.

All full-time workers are due to finish on February 24, but Ms Doolan, Ms Brown and Ms Wells said they have all offered to stay on as casuals until the final closing day.

General manager Graeme Tilley said it was difficult to confirm an exact closing date as there was still plenty of stock to be sold.

“We are compressing the back of the shop forward, and we have done that several times,” he said.

“We’ve still got a very busy shop … and we’ve still got customer orders for back to school to be picked up.”

Birchalls Devonport student bookshop was closed on Friday, with extra stock sent to the Launceston store.

Mr Tilley said his brother, Martin, would take over the Birchalls student bookshop at the Hobart TasTAFE campus, his toys manager was potentially opening her own store, and he was still looking for a buyer for the educational portion of the business.

The entire business was on the market from March 2016, but no buyer was found. 

The premises was sold in November.

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