CityView Magazine

CityViewNC.com | 19 downtown at a new job," she says, recalling when she was working in the accounting department of Shuler Ferris & Lindstrom, an architectural design firm. "I would spend my lunch hours just kind of wandering around and seeing how many of the buildings were vacant and in complete disrepair and kind of lamenting about not having an active downtown. e places I had lived before had downtowns and, for me, downtowns are the core of what a city should have." In the 1950s through the 1970s, downtown was the centerpiece of the city with retail stores including Belk Hensdale, e Capitol, JC Penney, Fleishman's Big Store, Sears & Roebuck, as well as small lunch spots, movie theaters and the local newspaper offices. Its decline began in 1977 with the opening of Cross Creek Mall across town. Downtown was no longer the mecca it once was. What today is Rude Awakening coffee house was once Brady's Soda Shop. When Molly Arnold discovered it, the shop was shuttered. But Arnold dreamed of what could be. "I really didn't want to be a restaurant owner or a coffee shop owner or, really, self-employed," Arnold says. "But I wanted to renovate downtown. I came up with a business plan model for a coffee house. I love coffee. I love chocolate. I love cake, and all those sorts of things sounded like they might work there. ere had been previous coffee shops downtown, but only one at the moment. I thought maybe this would be a go." Arnold says the city was considering demolishing the building to make way for a municipal parking lot. Finding 'great partners' Arnold would need some help for her coffee shop to become a reality. e old soda shop, you see, adjoined three other buildings. She says that a dollar stretches only so far. "It was tied to a purchase of three buildings, so luckily we found great partners in Eric Lindstrom and Chris Kuenzel in the same console," she says. "And then Jan Johnson and Pat Wright for Moonlight Communications, who were willing to take on the larger projects." Johnson, co-owner of the award-winning video production business, recalls meeting with Arnold. "In the late '90s, we were looking Arnold renamed her store at 223 Franklin St. to Cursive last year.

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