It has only been a couple of years since Tim Cheesebrow and his parents purchased Coffee Grounds at 1579 N. Hamline Ave., Falcon Heights, and renamed it Underground Music Café.
While Cheesebrow invested time, money and heart into the coffee shop, tweaking the interior to be more conducive to live music and adding an extensive menu, he recently sold the café to Ursula Shute.
“It was a tough but necessary decision. Dennis and Bonnie (Cheesebrow) moved up to Pine City, and it’s hard to manage a cafe from that distance,” Cheesebrow explained. “I have seen so much growth with my nonprofit that I had to choose what I was more passionate about, which is music education. But you’re in good hands with Ursula.”
Shute, for her part, doesn’t plan on any drastic changes anytime soon. It was the music that attracted her to Underground Music Cafe in the first place, so she plans to keep the program strong while hoping to diversify the musical offerings. The menu will eventually see a bit of tweaking—mainstreaming the dishes toward more familiar coffee house fare like sandwiches and soups. Shute would like to see more families using the space, especially stay-at-home parents and their little ones looking for a place to relax and play.
“I’ve talked to a lot of customers, some have been coming here for years through several owners,” Shute explained. “I want to maintain and strengthen the community feel here.”
Ursula:
Best wishes on your new enterprise! A few of us old farts abandoned the UMC because of all the fru-fru and will probably be back to give the CG(UMC) another try.