Two months after its abrupt closure in mid-June, the Uptown Cub supermarket appears to be in limbo. There’s little evidence of work inside or out, and Cub parent company UNFI has not said when the store could reopen.

“Once we know more information, we will update the community,” UNFI spokesperson Grace Turiano said in an email, echoing a written statement posted on the store’s front doors earlier this summer. That statement said 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.”

Turiano did not directly respond to questions 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 and may have been spurred by code violations or scheduled hastily after UNFI suffered a cyberattack that snarled its logistics network for days. Uptown Cub shoppers have long 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.

City of Minneapolis media relations coordinator Jess Olstad did not address rumors about the site’s condition or status and said city departments had no new information to share. UNFI is not required to keep local officials in the loop about a temporary store closure, but would need to notify staff if it plans to withdraw the location’s business license, she said. 

At least two Cub locations are slated to close in Minnesota this year. UNFI said in July that it would shutter its location in St. Paul’s Midway neighborhood this month. An independently owned Cub in the Brainerd area will close this fall, according to local media reports.

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.