Buy the Book’s early years were fun. Those years included cuddles with the late Mocha the shop cat, dreams of expansions and books with $15,000 price tags — (more on that later).

Those early years began in 2000, when Maple Valley couple Lee and Phil Cane purchased Buy the Book, a used bookstore on Williams Avenue South. The store, now Renton’s only non-specialty bookstore, opened in 1977 with the name Bookcyclers.

The Canes were confident in those early years that their downtown Renton bookshop would, as Lee said, “stand the test of time.”

The Canes’ sunny outlook soon darkened. The downward spiral began just two years after they bought the store, with Boeing’s massive layoffs of 2002.

“We lost 60 percent of our customers, and they never came back,” Lee said. “They’re probably still reading and buying books — just closer to home.”

The recent economic collapse, the building’s impending sale and their son’s disinterest in taking over “pulled the plug” on the store, Phil said. So after nearly nine years of limping along, Phil and Lee plan to close Buy the Book tomorrow, Feb. 28.

Phil’s job as a training officer for the Boeing Fire Department provides the only income keeping the Canes afloat. Still, closing shop wasn’t an easy decision.

“We were willing to keep it going as long as we thought it was possible to turn the corner, but this last year was just terrible,” Phil said. “This last year we lost the worst of all five years, and this year I’m afraid to do the taxes, I really am. I don’t even know how much we lost in 2008, but I know we did.”

Taking over Buy the Book wasn’t Phil’s idea, but Lee did ask for his input after a visit to the Renton shop. She came to the store looking for a rare “Conan the Barbarian” paperback, requested by a customer at Book World, the former Kent bookstore where Lee worked at the time. Buy the Book had the Conan paperback, so Lee bought both that book — and a week later, the store itself.

The Conan book cost only $1.25, but the Canes got another copy and tagged it $15,000 — the price they paid for the store.

“People were looking at me like ‘You’re crazy,’” Phil recalled. “Those were the fun days of the store.”

The shop’s recent financial troubles have dampened the fun. But both Phil and Lee have enjoyed the ride.

Customers have boosted the mood. Although average customer spending during the Canes’ tenure has declined from $20 to about $4, conversations have stayed vibrant.

“We’ve come to know a lot of these customers well,” Lee said during a recent afternoon behind the counter of the cozy shop.

The Canes have also provided extras for many customers, like trips to and from the airport and a box of murder mysteries and historical romances each month to a woman in an assisted-living home in Wenatchee. They also regularly donate books to homeless shelters, tent cities and Renton City Jail.

Regulars include the bushy-bearded Gary Grossman, ceramics and jewelry teacher at Hazen High School. He came by on that recent afternoon looking for art books for his students and stayed to talk about writer William S. Burroughs and the imbalance between athletics and the arts. He called Buy the Book’s closure “a communal loss.”

Lee agrees.

“The saddest thing for me about closing the shop is it’s a loss of a really valuable community resource,” she said.

A community resource she says Barnes & Noble and Borders — even libraries, can’t provide.

“It used to be a little shop like this was a key place for people to hang out in a small community,” Lee said. “That just doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.”

Longtime customer Sue Ingersoll of Fairwood had considered buying the shop at the time of Lee and Phil’s purchase.

“You guys are it for Renton,” she