Students will have to start looking for other venues to squelch their coffee craving after MT Cup closed during finals week.
Four businesses owned by Myles Ogea, including MT Cup, were targeted for mortgage foreclosures in 2010, according to a Daily News report. Ogea also filed bankruptcy in 2010. He could not be reached for comment.
Employees, like sophomore travel and tourism major Phoebe Higgins, were told of the closing less than a week before the business shut its doors.
Ryan Shanabarger, former MT Cup employee, said while it was hard telling customers that the coffee shop was closing, it was difficult for the employees as well.
"They were all so distraught by the idea, and I felt the same, and not just because I was losing my job," the junior philosophy and psychology major said. "I actually had my very first date at the MT Cup years ago, spent hours with friends there, and now it was closing."
Higgins said one of the hardest parts was telling regular customers that they couldn't make their favorite drinks because inventory hadn't been bought.
A few coffee shops have closed in Muncie over the past couple of years, including Coffee Junkiez, The Blue Bottle and Vecino's.
Higgins had been going to the MT Cup since she was 5 years old. Her father, Wally Higgins, had been going to MT Cup for about 15 years.
He said the comfortable feel of the coffee shop is what drew in regular customers.
"The people that came there and the reason they come there, that really didn't change over the years," Wally Higgins said. "Part of it is where it is at, but part of it was always a place where people could go and just be and just hang out. It was okay whoever you were."
One look at the Village, and one can see that MT Cup isn't the only vacancy. Mark Sturgis, principal broker at ADM Commercial Properties, which leases the building occupied by The Locker Room and China Express, said although the MT Cup's closing might have been associated with Ogea's foreclosures, he warns business owners who lease space from him to account for the whole year.
"The businesses do pretty well during the nine months that students are there," he said. "There is still quite a bit of business to be done for the three months, but the volume isn't near the same that it would be when the students are there."
Kevin Harrelson, assistant professor of philosophy and regular MT Cup customer, said the amount of vacancies in the Village is noticeable to anyone walking through.
"I walk through the Village on the way to campus and every evening on the way home from work and to pass through a completely empty Village is a sad thing," he said. "The MT Cup would at least have people outside [on the patio] as I passed through."
The coffee shop served as a place for Muncie citizens to hang out, too. Harrelson said he frequently used MT Cup as a meeting place with his students and his colleagues.
"It is one thing for us to be able to buy food or coffee or drinks, but it is also an important matter for us to have privately owned businesses for us to serve the community."
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