Thrive Coffee and Creamery is closing its doors after less than a year in business. The coffee and ice cream shop made the announcement on its Facebook page last week.

The faith-based business opened to glowing fanfare on July 4, 2019, with a line of people around the block eager for homemade ice cream. Since then the shop, located about a half a block off the downtown courthouse square on Church street, has been a hit on hot days. But the colder days have not been so kind. Ice cream isn’t a big seller amid cold temperatures, even though the business offers coffees and teas on its menu. But it’s the current state of the world and the devastation to the national and local economies due to the coronavirus pandemic that really tightened the screws on the fledgling business.

“Winter was really hard because of the ice cream sales, and then with the students leaving so early, and the COVID-19, our labor costs were so high compared to our sales,” explained Paula Volkmann, a member of the four-person board of directors that oversees operations at Thrive.

Thrive became a popular hangout for students of Central Methodist University just a few blocks away. But the campus shut down in March in an effort to mitigate the spread of the virus. “We’ll wait until the states opens things back up and we’ll have another conversation,” said Volkmann.

A strong local reaction to the news of the business's closure has prompted one last ice cream sale. “We’re making some ice cream today and tomorrow,” Volkmann said Monday. Thrive will reopen briefly on Thursday, from 4 to 6 p.m., and Friday, from 1 to 6 p.m., to sell ice cream by the pint only. “When we sell out of this batch we’ll put things on hold for a while,” she said.

 Volkmann said that once the COVID-19 pandemic subsides and things get back to normal, the board will revisit the situation and decide if reopening would be a viable option. In the meantime, Thrive announced on Facebook that for the next 60 days it will buy back any unused gift cards. Details have yet to be released about how the buy-back process will work.

“We just decided to be a little more prudent and not let it get so bad that we can’t recover,” Volkmann said. “We’re just going to put things on hold.”