Don't forget the overhead cost is much higher in a retail situation. Rent alone in certain areas can be astronomical, and don't expect employees to work for free. I used to work in a kitchen gadget retail store and would constantly have people try to waste my time asking tons of questions only to go elsewhere (online or walmart) for the actual goods. You're also paying for my time/expertise. I took great pride in my product knowledge and customer service skills. Always patient with the 'noobs' and never tried to act like I knew more than I did to the experienced customers. It was my job to guide and inform customers, not tell them what to do. Remember, the people who frequent a niche forum are the people most personally driven and curious about a subject. As a customer, that demographic is really just looking for the supplies they want and are usually price-driven. If a retail store tried to focus us as its primary customers, it would quickly go out of business, because mail-order will always win out.
Just look at how many people on here only shop their LHBS when they need something quick (and many of the exceptions have a online retailer like NB or Austin HB as their local). Unless you serve a large market, you'll never have the turn over on the specialty items which would draw the forum type crowd to make it worth keeping, especially perishables like specialty yeast, grains or hops.
Remember, in a small business retail setting, a 100% markup over your wholesale costs isn't unreasonable unless you have high volume sales. And online prices are essentially what the LHBS owner is paying.
Uh. well this sorta went all rambling on, but essentially... don't balk at prices 50-100% higher than online (especially on small dollar amounts like oz of hops, or lb of grain) thats probably what the owner needs to charge to survive. But absolutely don't tolerate terrible customer service, those folks deserve to fail in a customer service industry.
And I shop mainly online, closest HB stores are ~1 hour drive, but I always point people their way first when interested in homebrewing rather than to an online retailer. Same goes for kitchen goods or fish/aquarium stuff (my other $$$$$ hobby).