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Businesses forge ahead after the fire on East Adams Street

Damage to a building after the fire on E. Adams St. in June 2024.
NPR Illinois
Damage to a building after the fire on E. Adams St. in June 2024.

It’s been about five months since a fire in downtown Springfield destroyed several businesses and apartments. Now, two of the four businesses that were affected have reopened and a third business recently announced plans to reopen next year.

The June 19 blaze in the 400 block of East Adams Street destroyed four businesses: Cafe Moxo, The Cats’ Pyjamas Cat Cafe, Electric Quill Tattoos and The Elf Shelf Books & Music. The apartments above were also destroyed, displacing the residents who lived there.

Cafe Moxo had been open for 18 years at 411 E. Adams St. before the fire. On Thanksgiving morning, owner Mark Forinash announced on Instagram the restaurant will reopen by March 1 at 2661 Chatham Road. The building currently houses Three Twigs & Company, a bakery that is closing later this month while the owners consider the business’ future.

“First and foremost, our goal was to get open again, but getting open downtown was just going to end up taking a little bit too long,” Forinash said. “So we had to kind of search for another location, and we've settled on one that is westward, but we also want to figure out how to return back to downtown. If we can eventually get two locations that would be the perfect storm for us. So that's kind of our goal.”

After the fire, Forinash and his staff started volunteering and cooking for local non-profits, including St. John’s Breadline, Contact Ministries, Central Illinois Food Bank, Compass for Kids, and various senior citizens’ homes. Forinash said he has lost some staff members, but hopes to pick them back up and add more staff when they reopen.

“It will be a seven-day-a-week operation. So with that comes more people, not more headaches, just more opportunities,” he said.

“But nothing's going to change from a recipe standpoint,” Forinash said. “So the same Cafe Moxo food that you had at 411 East Adams is the same recipe that we're going to be making at (the new location).”

The Cats’ Pyjamas Cat Cafe originally opened in March, a little over three months before the fire. The cafe is full of adoptable cats that guests can play with while enjoying coffee and snacks. In August, they reopened at 524 E. Capitol Ave.

Tom Raymond, who co-owns the Cafe with his wife, said their main focus during the fire was getting all the cats to safety. All eight cats were rescued and immediately taken in by community members. Raymond said that pretty quickly after being fostered, all eight were adopted.

“We’ve had 34 adoptions so far, with 10 cats being adopted before the fire and the eight actually being adopted right after the fire,” he said.

Raymond said the community made their reopening possible - volunteers helped repaint the walls of their new location, they were given furniture to help furnish the space, and they received donations from community members.

“We reopened very quickly because it seemed that people were really eager to have a cat cafe downtown,” Raymond said.

The cafe is back to full operations. Their December hours are Mondays and Tuesday from noon to 1 p.m. and 5 to 6 p.m., Wednesday 4 to 8 p.m., and Thursday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3 to 6 p.m. with Saturdays open until 8 p.m.

Before the fire, admission cost $7.50. Now, Mondays and Tuesdays are free and the rest of the week admission costs $5, as Raymond said he wants to give back to the community, which did so much for them.

Electric Quill Tattoos was originally housed on Dirksen Parkway for two years before they moved to Adams Street in May, about a month before the fire. They reopened in late July at 100 N. Sixth St., although they’re still working to put the final touches on the interior.

“There was a week there where I wasn't sure whether I was going to return to tattooing. That's the honest truth,” the owner, Steve Lima, said. “After moving from one location to another and then putting all that money in, you know, I hadn't gotten insurance yet, I was only there 30 days. Worst mistake ever. So that was it, I was completely broke. I had like literally nothing left.”

Lima said that the community came together to support him and his business. He was able to get started on reopening after receiving a little over $4,000 in donations through GoFundMe, as well as receiving funds from the first round of the Adams Family Fire fund.

“I knew if I just opened it up and just kept working, eventually I'd get back to where it was,” he said.

Electric Quill Tattoos is open noon to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, with walk-ins every Saturday.

The Elf Shelf Books & Music was at 413 E. Adams St. Owner John Combs said he won’t be able to reopen the business because all of the inventory was destroyed.

“That was 20 years of collecting. I would have to do that again and by that time I’d be 70 years old. I’m done,” Combs said.

Combs was a partial owner of the building and made the rest of his income from the residents who lived there, and the fire destroyed both his business and the apartments he managed. Combs said he received some funds from crowdsourcing but he said it’s not enough to start The Elf Shelf up again.

“It's not so much that I’m looking for any money,” he said. “I’m just trying to survive right now.”

The Springfield community raised nearly $30,000 to support the people and businesses that were impacted by the fire. The money was given in three rounds as checks from the INB Benefit for the Businesses Affected by the Adams Family Fire fund.

Forinash, the owner of Cafe Moxo, said he received a lot of financial support from the community, including money from those funds, but he would not specify how much.

Raymond said he received $1,000 from the first round.

“Unfortunately, we were not informed about the second or third rounds of funding, so we did not apply or receive additional grants,” Raymond said.

Lima said he received “a couple grand” from the first round and did not apply for the second or third to leave it for those businesses and residents who may have needed it more.

“After the first one I was like, ‘dude, I'm good.’ You know what I mean? I got the place, I got everything set up, I could survive from here,” Lima said.

Combs said that he was not informed about the first round of funding or the application process and did not receive any money.

In response to Facebook posts about the funds being given out to all the businesses, which listed the Elf Shelf even though Combs said he had not received any money, Combs took to Facebook. He posted several messages telling people to “know where your money goes.”

“I’m convinced that the only reason there was any announcement about the second round is because I raised a stink about it. And basically they gave me a thousand dollar check and hoped I would walk away. I got a thousand dollar check out of $30,000 raised,” Combs said.

He said he was informed that residents who were displaced from their apartments only received $500 each. One of his former residents reached out and told him that they were not aware of the funding and had not received any money either.

“They put out their list of who supposedly got all the money. One of the reasons I'm so angry about it right now is they said that I got a third round, and I have nothing,” Combs said.