The Uptown Cub appears to be open again after a two-month hiatus following an abrupt closure in mid-June. 

Cub parent company UNFI remained tight-lipped throughout the closure, telling multiple media outlets this month (including Southwest Voices) it couldn’t confirm a reopening date. Earlier this week, Bring Me the News heard from “several people with knowledge of the situation” that the store would be back open within three weeks.

UNFI also appears to have kept the City of Minneapolis in the dark as Uptown went without its largest purveyor of fresh, affordable groceries. A city spokesperson told Southwest Voices earlier this month that the Health and Community Planning and Economic Development departments had no updates on the store’s status since the mid-June closure. 

Before the Uptown Cub reopened, Southwest Voices investigated how the closure and the broader issue of food security could play into a Minneapolis mayoral race that’s rapidly heating up. 

We reached out to the campaigns for Mayor Jacob Frey, State Sen. Omar Fateh, Rev. Dr. DeWayne Davis and Jazz Hampton. Fateh, Davis and Hampton shared their thoughts in written statements and interviews. As of press time, Mayor Frey’s campaign had not provided a statement or made Frey available for an interview, but we will publish his thoughts here if we receive them. 

State Sen. Omar Fateh

Sen. Fateh represents parts of Southwest Minneapolis. In a statement shared with Southwest Voices, Fateh said that “access to affordable and healthy groceries is extremely important, and we know that areas of the city that have been disinvested in by the City experience ‘food deserts’ where it is hard for residents to access affordable and healthy food options.”

With Lunds & Byerly’s, Kowalski’s, ALDI and Good Grocer locations within a mile, the Lake/Lagoon area is not technically a food desert. But neighbors perceive Lunds & Byerly’s and Kowalski’s as more expensive, while ALDI lacks the broad selection of larger regional supermarket chains like Cub or Hy-Vee. 

However, much of North Minneapolis and significant sections of Northeast and Southeast Minneapolis lie in USDA-defined food deserts, according to a University of St. Thomas analysis from last year. 

Fateh said a range of options should be on the table to expand consumer choice and keep groceries affordable for Minneapolis residents. As mayor, he said, he would explore “creative solutions” like making grants to small grocery stores opening in underserved areas, pushing zoning changes to “support low-impact small businesses such as corner stores and small grocery stores” in high-density areas, and implementing a commercial vacancy tax to encourage new businesses to open in formerly vacant spaces.

“I will also work alongside the City Council to explore the feasibility of municipally-owned grocery stores to ensure access to healthy and affordable food options throughout the city,” he added.

Rev. Dr. DeWayne Davis

DeWayne Davis is a longtime racial and economic justice advocate and the lead pastor at Plymouth Congregational Church in the Stevens Square neighborhood. 

Dr. Davis told Southwest Voices that the Uptown neighborhood needs an “affordable, accessible grocery store.” During prolonged supermarket closures like the one that just ended, the city “should be in conversation with the grocery store and its owners about [the] timeline” for reopening, he said.

The City spokesperson Southwest Voices connected with earlier this month gave little indication that UNFI had engaged with the city during the closure. But any supermarket owner would need to notify the city if it planned to close a store permanently, they said.

Like Fateh, Davis sounded open to the idea of a publicly owned or social-enterprise grocery store like the Good Grocer food outlet in Whittier. 

“I would task my staff to explore how the City could support the creation of a non-profit or community-owned grocery store like North Market,” he said. 

Jazz Hampton

Jazz Hampton is an attorney and social entrepreneur. He cofounded TurnSignl, which his campaign website describes as “an app that instantly connects drivers with attorneys nationwide during traffic stops to ensure their rights are protected and everyone gets home safely.”

In an interview with Southwest Voices, Hampton said the temporary Cub closure harmed Uptown residents forced to travel outside the neighborhood for groceries and medication.

“There’s a pharmacy there too, so now we’re talking about two of the most important things you need in your life farther away from you,” he said. The burden was heavier for car-free residents, who are limited in what they can carry home from the store and thus need to shop more frequently — a literal waste of time better spent elsewhere, he said.

That’s the case on a more permanent basis for residents of actual food deserts, he noted. Hampton tied the issue to a broader crisis of affordability, noting that his monthly grocery bill as a father of three “is competitive with my rent.” 

“Affordability is a full-scale conversation,” he said. “We need to talk about all these things in concert [and] improve all of them a little bit.”

But Hampton sounded cautious on the idea of a publicly run grocery store, nodding to the industry’s notoriously thin margins and the possibility that taxpayers would be on the hook for any deficits. Despite its newfound status as a punching bag for anti-urban outsiders, Uptown’s fundamentals remain strong, he said.

”I don’t buy the narrative that says we can’t have a grocery store that is clean, affordable and union-friendly” in Uptown, Hampton said.

Why did the Uptown Cub close in the first place?

When the Uptown Cub abruptly closed in mid-June, neighbors had little insight as to why. The only real window into parent company UNFI’s thinking was a sign on the front door saying the store would “undergo some needed repairs and other proactive measures…to ensure we can provide the same high-quality and high-value shopping experience that Cub customers have come to know and expect.”

UNFI spokesperson Grace Turiano did not directly respond to a Southwest Voices inquiry earlier this month seeking more details on the reasons for the closure or whether it would become permanent. 

Unverified local chatter shortly after the shuttering indicated it could last two to three months — about right, as it turned out. Rumors also swirled that the closure may have been spurred by code violations or scheduled hastily after UNFI suffered a cyberattack that snarled its logistics network for days. 

Prior to the closure, Uptown Cub shoppers frequently complained of cleanliness issues, empty shelves and locked-up merchandise.

“It's actually pretty crazy how much better other Cub locations are than the Uptown one,” one Redditor said in June.

The closure also sparked fears — unfounded, fortunately — that Uptown would be left without a reliable source of budget-friendly groceries. At least two Cub locations are slated to close in Minnesota this year: one in St. Paul’s Midway neighborhood shuttering this month and another, independently-owned location in the Brainerd area that local media reports say will cease operations this fall.

Most of the workers at those locations are represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers’ union. In December 2023, workers at the Brainerd-area location joined workers from four other stores in the area for a four-day action that local Minnesota Public Radio affiliate KAXE called “the largest grocery store strike in decades in Minnesota.”

UNFI was not directly affected by that strike, but the company has more recently tussled with the UFCW Local 633, which represents Cub workers across the Twin Cities region. In May, union members at 33 stores voted to reject a proposed contract with UNFI and two other supermarket operators.

“The companies’ offers would have shifted a larger share of health care costs to workers, failed to provide the kind of raises workers need to live, sought concessions from the union, and, generally, failed to listen to the needs of their employees,” the union said in a statement afterward.

The union subsequently filed unfair labor practice charges against UNFI and Cub over an alleged “failure to bargain in good faith.”

In late June, union members ratified a new contract with UNFI and the other employers that boosted employee wages by up to 13% and employer pension contributions by 8.8% over the contract’s term.