On March 5, the Reflector mistakenly published the rough draft of this article. This draft contained quotes that made unsubstantiated claims and insinuations, painting an unfair and inaccurate picture of the owners of Nine-Twentynine Coffee Bar. We sincerely apologize for this incident.
On Aug. 30, 2024, well-loved local business Nine-Twentynine Coffee Bar announced on its social media platforms that the very next day, Aug. 31 would be its final day of business operations and the coffee house would be moving to a new, yet-to-be-disclosed location.
Expressions of gratitude were immediately spread on behalf of the Nine-Twentynine Coffee Bar to the community for their loyal support over the past 12 years of service.
By September 2024, a new coffee house, High Ground Coffee, was set to open in Nine-Twentynine’s former location by December.
It did not take long for the rumor mill to begin churning. Why did Nine-Twentynine close, and why did a new coffee shop open in its place?
People learned the owner of High Ground Coffee was the previous landlord of Nine-Twentynine Coffee Bar. This discovery fueled the fires brewing on social media websites such as Reddit or even passing conversations around Main Street. Accusations on High Ground’s Instagram profile and variations of what happened to Nine-Twentynine abounded.
Some said that Nine-Twentynine’s previous landlord instated a sudden $17,000 increase in rent at the beginning of August and, if the coffee shop was unable to pay it by the end of the month, Nine-Twentynine needed to make itself scarce from the premises. Others claimed that Nine-Twentynine had been unable to retrieve all of their equipment and machinery before the deadline and High Ground, not permitting them to retrieve it, turned around and used it for their own coffee shop.
The only resounding truth in the situation was clear: no one had the story straight.
Freida Buckley and the Origin of Nine-Twentynine Coffee Bar
This story truly begins with a woman named Freida Buckley, who purchased the century-old building located at 106 E Main Street back in 2001.
On Aug. 27, 2012, Buckley signed a lease with a pair of brothers, Joe and Neil Couvillion, to rent out the space to make room for what would become Nine-Twentynine Coffee Bar. Nine-Twentynine Coffee Bar occupied the ground and basement levels. A hair salon opened by Buckley, Tokro’s, resided and still resides on the second floor of the building.
The renting rate for their first three year period was $1,400 per month. The original lease provided for increases of a couple hundred dollars a month in subsequent leases. Nine-Twentynine began renting a larger section of the basement in 2014 to make room for the installation of a full service kitchen, and rent was subsequently increased by $400 for the additional space. By 2021, Nine-Twentynine was paying $2,251 per month.
That year, Freida Buckley was in the midst of retiring which included passing down two things: the Tokro’s hair salon to a pair of women who had worked under Buckley for many years and the ownership of the entire building to Mike Frayser, Buckley’s son.
After taking over ownership of the building, Frayser decided to renegotiate Nine-Twentynine Coffee Bar’s lease, which resulted in a new lease agreement. The biggest change between the leases under Buckley and the leases under Frayser was the renting rates, which were about to increase greatly.
“They were paying but about a third of the market for rent,” Frayser said. “It didn’t go straight up to the market and they still weren’t paying market rate when they left.”
This new, two-year lease increased Nine-Twentynine’s renting rates to $4,500 per month for the first year and $5,000 per month for the second year.
After this two-year lease expired, Nine-Twentynine would have the option to renew for another four-year term with more rent increases over time, capping at $6,300 per month.
An Electrical Issue
After taking over landlord responsibilities of Nine-Twentynine, Frayser said he discovered an issue involving the electrical wiring between the two businesses in the building. According to Frayser, Nine-Twentynine’s own electrical panel was completely full and some of the coffee shop’s wires were plugged into Tokro’s panel.
“They had tied their kitchen electricity into the beauty salon’s electrical panel,” Frayser said. “The salon upstairs was actually paying a big chunk of their electric bill for 10 years.”
As a result, Frayser said he asked that Nine-Twentynine rewire their electricity in a way that their usage would not be charged to Tokro’s and, after a few months, the issue was resolved.
It is difficult to calculate or measure how much of Tokro’s electrical bills over this time period could be traced back to Nine-Twentynine’s own electricity usage. Both a coffee shop and a hair salon are businesses that include the consumption of large amounts of electricity by operating machinery, powering equipment or just by keeping the lights on.
“It’s just a big mess, okay, but they fixed it,” Frayser said.
The 2021 Lease Comes to an End
According to Frayser, as the two-year 2021 lease was drawing to its expiration, Nine-Twentynine asked for a concession on it. On Sept. 12, 2023, another lease agreement was signed – altering a few of the rental terms outlined in the 2021 lease.
This 2023 lease would last a single year, with a $5,500 per month rate officially in effect on Sept. 1, 2023 and lasting until Aug. 31, 2024. Rather than the four-year lease renewal as attached to the 2021 lease, the 2023 lease offered a three-year-long second term. This potential second term would have increased Nine-Twentynine’s rent to $6,300 per month, starting Sept. 1, 2024 and ending Aug. 31, 2027.
“They were to let me know 90 days before the expiration [Aug. 31, 2024] if they were going to exercise their option and stay in the space for another three years. So, that would be in the first part of June,” Frayser said. “At that point in June, they came to me and said, ‘Look, we’re thinking about moving the coffee shop to one of our properties. Would you be willing to give us a one-year deal instead of making us sign a three-year option and be stuck in the lease for three years?’ I said, ‘Let me think about it.’”
Frayser said he requested two separate checks from Nine-Twentynine as reimbursement for the mischarged electricity bills. This request consisted of a cashier’s check of $10,000 to the Tokro’s owners for the two years they partially paid Nine-Twentynine’s electricity on their bills and another check of $7,500 to Freida Buckley for the months where the wiring issue had been known but not patched. By meeting these conditions, Frayser said he would have given Nine-Twentynine the extra year in their location without having to sign on for another three years.
This deal was not desirable or feasible for Nine-Twentynine – especially on such short notice.
Shortly after this development, Frayser said he was contacted by the owners of Nine-Twentynine again for another negotiation on the lease. Rather than an extra year, Nine-Twentynine requested one more month. This was due to a wedding party already scheduled to take place at Nine-Twentynine in September 2024 and the coffee shop did not want to cancel the customers’ booking so close to the event.
After some back-and-forth discussion, Frayser said the deal became a $2,500 weekly check sent to Tokro’s starting Aug. 1. This would result in Nine-Twentynine keeping the space for September. According to Frayser, the first two checks were a week late each.
By Aug. 20, Frayser said he decided that Nine-Twentynine would not be receiving the extra month in operation. Nine-Twentynine’s lease at 106 E Main Street expired on Aug. 31, 2024, and they were expected to move out on that date. However, as they wanted the coffeehouse to stay open for business on the last day of the lease rather than moving all of its equipment and machinery out of the building, the Nine-Twentynine management and staff would be permitted to return after the lease had ended to remove everything that was theirs.
The only fixtures Nine-Twentynine was not permitted to take were renovations made to the building’s structure itself, such as the bathroom facilities or the functional garage door that comprises the Main Street-facing wall of the café. This was outlined in several of the leases, explaining that structural changes of this nature would belong to the lessor rather than the lessees.
The owners of Nine-Twentynine Coffee Bar were contacted for statements and declined to comment.
High Ground Coffee Opens
With Nine-Twentynine Coffee Bar moved out, Frayser said he needed to find a new tenant and business to occupy the space. He had recently spoken with a friend, Matthew Ellis, about an idea Ellis was entertaining of opening a board game café. However, Frayser said that Ellis was struggling to find a way to finance the idea.
After considering the prospect for a while and considering other potential businesses to take over Nine-Twentynine’s previous location, Frayser said he landed on a deal with Ellis in which Frayser would, on paper, own and open this new coffee shop while paying Ellis — the manager — a salary to run the operation.
Some of the people most affected by Nine-Twentynine Coffee Bar’s closure were the general barista and kitchen staff members.
Ashlyn Adams started working for Nine-Twentynine as a barista in July 2024, leaving another job to do so and unaware that she would find herself unemployed in a month.
When asked why she had been hired so close to the lease expiration, Adams said she interpreted it as Nine-Twentynine not believing it was going to close at the end of August at all.
“I think they fully believed that Mike was gonna extend the lease for them,” Adams said. “I think it’s just kind of being goofy – maybe like just kind of ignoring problems. I really don’t know why.”
After Nine-Twentynine’s closure, Adams and several other Nine-Twentynine employees were offered to interview for positions at High Ground Coffee, where she currently works as a barista.
Similarly, Harrison Scott was hired as a barista by Nine-Twentynine in June 2024 and also now currently works for High Ground.
Even in the face of the rumors circulating around Starkville regarding himself and High Ground Coffee, Mike Frayser said he does not deny that the arrangement was a mutually beneficial one for him and Matthew Ellis.
“I mean, I’m not sitting here presenting myself to be some great humanitarian that’s just trying to help Matthew,” Frayser said. “At the end of the day, I was like, well, you know I can either go through the hassle of negotiating another lease and trying to find a new tenant to lease it out and get them to make sure they can make a business work, or I can just open one. So I guess there was some benefit to me out of it but it wasn’t something I planned to do way back. It was at the very last minute it changed from Matthew opening a business to me having to do it.”
Though, he said the rumors still pop up on occasion – particularly on social media.
“My door is open,” Frayser said. “I invite anybody who would like to discuss this to come in here and sit down like a human being and have a conversation. I invite that instead of jumping around, hiding behind a keyboard and making all these comments.”
