About eight years ago, Chris Jordan’s coffee shop coworker asked him if he wanted to buy an espresso machine. He didn’t think about where to put his new machine until after he bought it.
“I had to figure out where to put it, because it couldn’t stay on the kitchen sink, so I built a coffee shop in my driveway,” Jordan said.
The driveway coffee shop, Tin Cup Joe, opened in March 2016 in Carrboro, but spent the last 5.5 years on North Graham Street in Chapel Hill. But on Saturday, Tin Cup Joe closed its doors. Jordan said several infrastructure changes in Chapel Hill influenced his decision to close the coffee shop.
Jordan said that when he started Tin Cup Joe, he built a successful business until the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020.
“It was difficult to know how to handle when it happened, right?” Jordan said. “So that was problematic for everyone. But during that time, there was a shift in traffic patterns.”
In March 2022, Chapel Hill’s Estes Drive Connectivity Project began construction. According to the Town’s website, the purpose of the project is to provide improvements for pedestrians and cyclists along Estes Drive and the Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Estes Drive intersection. The project converted most of Estes Drive into one-way traffic.
Jordan said that while the shift in traffic from the lack of commuters during the pandemic was not a big problem for him, the road closures from the Estes project were.
“We took off half of Franklin Street, closed off Rosemary, as you know, split around the jam, and we closed off Estes,” he said. “I think if I understand correctly, they’re about to close MLK in front of the fire station. Which is the last fucking side access to town. How are people going to get here?”
The Town is modifying the Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and North Street intersection just north of downtown. While there will be delays and slowdowns, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard is not closing.