The Wake

Creative thinkers converted the former Theda Chi frat house into a coffee shop that seeks to serve its community in an ambitious way. Bordertown Coffee opened in Dinkytown on the corner of 4th Street and 16th Avenue, at the end of January, the day before the Twin Cities got its first real dose of snow.

The Theda Chi house, built in 1929, closed about five years ago due to fire safety regulations and declining enrollment. The house remained vacant until Greg Silker, the director of Campus Journey, a non-profit Christian and non-greek fraternity and sorority that currently owns the house and coffee shop, bought it two years ago, renovating it to its current grind-glory grandeur.

The name came from an ethics and philosophy discussion group named Bordertown that met in the space about a year before the shop opened, says Nathan Clancy, a supervisor at Bordertown Coffee. He says the name stayed because the shop wants to keep that feeling. “It’s a place where people can come and share ideas,” says Clancy. He also stressed that it is a place to study, meet with friends, or even enter into a conversation with people you do not know.

“As the coffee shop has come to the foreground…building community has become a real big focus. There’s so much isolation to be had in American culture. On the largest campus in the nation [this] is a place where people can come,” says Matt Wingard, an employee of Campus Journey. “It’s an attempt to recapture the heart of community.”

“We have a society that’s being medicated for the depression caused by isolation. If we can fight that on the forefront…than we’re really on our way,” says Wingard.

Bordertown has a lot to offer their customers including: free wireless Internet, a full selection of coffee beverages and fireplace with plenty of couches and tables. They also have a room that groups can reserve if they want a more intimate meeting space, free of charge.

“The value of a coffee shop is that in a sense it is a retreat from what’s going on and we want to cater to that…we want people to come in here and make it a place that becomes a home,” says Dan Armstrong, manager of Bordertown.

The shop currently has acoustic performances every Friday night that they eventually hope to expand to other types of music. Other plans include hosting a local film festival, a place for artists to display their works and lectures once or twice a month on various topics. “Our goal is to be art rich,” says Silker.

“We want to be a community that invites other communities,” says Clancy, but admits that a lot is still in the developing stages.

“It’s still a business but we’re trying to put a heart underneath it,” says Wingard.

Bordertown’s Web site, which is up but not complete, is www.bordertowncoffee.com.