MINNEAPOLIS — A popular bicycle shop known as The Hub Bike Co-op will reopen its main location on Minnehaha Avenue in South Minneapolis on Saturday, six months after closing the building due to pandemic pressures.
As the only Twin Cities bicycle shop with a decentralized Co-operative ownership structure, The Hub has gained a huge community following for its bike sales, repairs, fix-it-yourself spaces and classes. After an initial boom in sales at the start of the pandemic, though, rapid changes in the industry forced The Hub to shift operations last fall from its main location to a much smaller space on the University of Minnesota campus.
"The last few years kind of came home to roost. We were able to forecast it with enough time to put the brakes on the operation and hunker down for the winter, to figure out what the plan was going to be," said Jens Hoifeldt, one of seven worker-owners at The Hub. "We didn't know we would be reopening in the same building and didn't know we would be reopening at all. We really had to crunch some numbers."
The numbers looked good enough for a spring reopening.
The Hub's Minnehaha Avenue location will officially open from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday. Staff members plan to offer cake and balloons, with a more formal reopening celebration expected down the road.
"We really feel in our hearts that the community is really there for us," Hoifeldt said, "and excited to see us come back to this part of town."
Brian Dowdy, who bought into the Co-op a few years ago, said he's excited to see familiar faces at the South Minneapolis shop.
"We offer a place where all kinds of different people with all kinds of different bikes feel a sense of belonging," Dowdy said.
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