It’s like there’s a death in the family.

Except it hasn’t happened yet. So it’s more like there’s someone with a malingering illness in the family. An illness that’s going to kill them by the end of August. Except, after they die, they’re still going to be around, shelving books, and answering phones, and ringing transactions on the tills.

Wait, what?

So: the Bookstore’s parent has three locations in DC, one waaaaay the hell up by the Maryland line, the other just a short ten or fifteen walk away from my store. And that store — the one a short walk away — is going to be out of business in just a few months.

Clyde’s Restaurant Group plans to open a two-story, 35,000-square-foot restaurant in space currently occupied by a Borders bookstore in downtown D.C. next year, creating one of the city’s biggest dining options and the 14th site in the Clyde’s chain.

The space, in the ground floor and basement levels of the former Garfinkel’s department store building on 14th Street NW, is across the street from the Willard Hotel and two blocks from the White House. It is also around the corner from the Old Ebbitt Grill, the chain’s signature establishment and one that Tom Meyer, Clyde’s executive vice president, said cannot meet the demand from tourists, office workers and others in the area.

In the deal signed June 15, Clyde’s will assume the Borders lease with the building’s owner, Shorenstein Properties, with some changes, giving the restaurant 20 years from its opening with an additional 20 years of options. Facing a tough bookseller market, Borders had been looking to sublet, though it still has a store at 18th and L streets NW. A Borders official confirmed the 14th Street store is closing.

With the Borders set to close by Sept. 1, the new restaurant could open in late 2011.

It’s kind of weird that it takes that long to get a restaurant up and running, but I’m not well versed in those matters, and I guess they’d have to pretty much gut that entire space.

In any case, I spoke to my store’s management team about what to expect. Basically, we’ll get any unsold electronic merchandise (eReaders and the like), what unsold books or media there are will be shipped back to the distribution centers. As for staff, there’s no word on what’ll happen to their GM, but we’ll apparently get much of their staff.

Um. Wait, what?

Because just because we’re getting their staff doesn’t mean we’re getting their payroll on top of ours, dig? Staff at our store have a hard time getting the hours they need because of the payroll limitations, so bringing a whole boat load of new people into the mix to divide those same hours by isn’t going to make anyone happy.

Except, phew! Our GM has a plan — and I hope he can pull it off. Basically, the Bookstore’s payroll hours are determined by some complicated formula from the home offices out in Michigan. A key part of this is sales volume, and increased sales over the same point the previous year — both of these have, for us, been going up. Once we hit that magic number (not sure what it is, myself), we qualify for the next level of payroll, which means we might actually be staffed to the teeth for once.

In any case, I’m trying to be optimistic. The alternative is blind panic.