DENVER — A Denver business that was seized by the city due to unpaid taxes is now getting a second chance thanks to the community rallying behind it.
Mutiny Information Cafe on Broadway has been a staple in the city for over a decade. On Thursday, it was shutdown because the owners owed money in back taxes.
But in less than 24 hours, people came together and raised more than $50,000 on a GoFundMe page to keep the business open.
"It means a great deal to me personally, because I've put on so many shows here. And they've sold a lot of my books and been so supportive of my career, my projects, but also so many of my friends," said Josiah Hesse, who donated to the GoFundMe page. "It means so much to me and to so many other people. I would just feel that Denver would be at a tremendous loss if it went away."
"It's sort of hard to quantify. It's, it's sort of... it's invaluable. I just knew that we couldn't, we couldn't lose Mutiny. And so I had to do everything that I could to make sure that we kept it," said R. Alan Brooks, who also made a donation and helped get the word out.
"We are overwhelmed that went literally from tears of losing your whole lifelong dream to tears of gratitude and humility and little embarrassment, of course, we're overwhelmed with with gratitude," said co-owner, Jim Norris.
Norris and co-owner Matt Megyesi are now pledging to pay the good deed forward.
"I cried. It all happened so quickly, came around so fast that I was quite surprised with that. Now I feel like we've got a lot of work to do to kind of live up to the, not necessarily the expectations, but you know, the needs of people in our community," said Megyesi.
"As long as Mutiny is here. We will honor all that goodwill. We were just overwhelmed that people care that much about us," added Norris.
Norris and Megyesi have still not received the keys to the business but are planning on paying the debt owed and are hoping to open the business back up this week.
