The coffee shop The Underground is projected to open during the spring semester after its abrupt close this summer.
The current owner of The Underground Café (formerly The Underground Coffee Shop), Sean Hudkins, owned the company The Underground Café, but someone else owned the building The Underground Café was located in. Due to financial issues, the building’s owner lost the building, causing Hudkins to close The Underground Café company on May 29.
“Some things went down this past summer not having anything to do with us,” Hudkins said concerning the closure.
In addition to owning The Underground Café, Sean and his wife own Zion, a nonprofit rock-climbing center. Zion and The Underground Café are two separate entities housed in the same building.
The Hudkinses created Peace Agenda LLC for the purpose of buying the building.
“It closed because of circumstances outside of our control and because of that we were able to come in and purchase the building, which we had intended to do for a couple of years,” Hudkins said.
The Hudkinses said they bought the building from the First Community Bank, which had taken ownership of it, and are now in the process of reselling to a business or organization in the community with specific guidelines to protect Zion and its outreach, which is geared toward sharing Christ’s love to the community through climbing. It also provides a space for community involvement.
The building is up for sale at two listed prices. One price includes the Zion climbing center and creates a tax write-off for the owner. The other price is higher and would include removal of Zion from the building and letting the new owner take control of what to put into the building.
“Our [Zion’s] goal is to operate in the community,” Hudkins said.
Currently, two groups of people looking into the building are going to put in a coffee shop and make the needed upgrades to the more than 130-year-old building.
The Hudkinses said they are more focused on Zion than The Underground and are going to keep it up and running with any new owners.
“We enjoyed running The Underground but Zion was our passion,” Hudkins said. “The rock climbing and the ministry and the Harding class we teach are the things we enjoy.”
Zion is closed to the public but is still part of the climbing class offered on Harding’s campus. Zion does, however, offer outdoor excursions and provide the portable rock-climbing wall at events.
“[The Hudkinses] are trying to so get some activity going with signing a group of people who want to learn how to climb outdoors, and they’ll take an excursion team out to Jamestown Craig, in Batesville, Ark., to teach them the basics and get them climbing,” senior Dylan Parker, a former employee, said.
Hudkins said he misses The Underground.
“Underground for us was always a place that created conversation, that nurtured that, that nurtured different ideas to be discussed without being — without constraints — that can go on just to encourage the conversation as much as anything and so ideally that is going to continue,” he said.
The final word is that The Underground and Zion will open back up in the spring, Hudkins said.
