“No man is a failure who has Friends.” — Clarence the Angel, It’s a Wonderful Life
by Luke Schmaltz
It is a Monday afternoon in early October 2022. Jim Norris is working behind the coffee bar at Mutiny Information Cafe, holding down barista duties for the nth day in a row. He is owner and proprietor of “The World’s Most Dangerous Bookstore” along with his partner Matt Megyesi. The duo have been through the literal wringer of late, having dealt with Megyesi’s faltering health, employee theft, extreme vandalism, and the most dreaded of all — the Denver Department of Finance.
The emotional shellshock of the last 24 months is wearing on him, when out of the blue, the employee who is supposed to relieve him calls to say they are running “about 90 minutes late.” He sighs, puts down the phone, and makes himself another Americano.
Pillar Of Personality
Mutiny partners Jim Norris and Matt Megyesi are beloved stalwarts of the Denver indie arts scene.
Mutiny occupies what is unequivocally the most vibrant stretch of South Broadway, perched as the flagship business on the southeast corner of Ellsworth. As anyone with a pulse knows, “vibrant” means lots of pedestrian traffic and in today’s Denver — where there are people there is trouble.
Regardless, the personality and mojo spilling forth from Mutiny’s front door bears the unmistakable essence of everything good about the independent business culture of Denver. Humility, respect, openness, equality, diversity, unity, strength, and self-reliance practically ooze from every shelf, nook, and cranny of the place.
The place is a hub for writers, artists, musicians, comedians, magicians, and anyone with a creative streak. If you have seen an art opening, comedy show, or live music performance in Denver anytime in the last nine years, chances are that media had origins of some sort within the walls of Mutiny.
Mutiny Information Cafe is a hub for creatives of all types and a top retail destination for records, coffee, novels, comic books, and more.
Meanwhile, the two-way conveyor belt churning past the store’s front windows presents the usual menagerie of South Broadway human fare. It is a hodgepodge of characters, personalities, and temperaments indicative of a district buzzing with artists, writers, and yuppies, yet simultaneously gripped by addiction, crime, and fear. There are jugglers, skateboarders, survey takers, families with baby strollers, panhandlers, stumblers, mumblers, vapers, smokers, tweakers, buskers, and much more.
Such high-volume foot traffic usually bodes well for a retail business, but there’s trouble in paradise. While the eclectic personality of Mutiny attracts earnest spenders looking for caffeinated drinks, novels, vinyl records, and comic books — it also attracts folks who are looking to get even with their misfortunate lot in life by stealing anything they can get their hands on. “They’ll swipe anything that is not nailed down,” Norris explains. “Crime is terrible around here because of the extreme economic disparity at work. There are too many rich people who don’t give a shit,” he says.
Summer Of Bummers
Mutiny Information Cafe has been brutalized by circumstances over the last couple of years.
Emerging from the aftermath of Covid was tough for everyone, as any small business owner who was lucky enough to survive 2020/2021 will tell you. Mutiny is no exception, having suffered loss of revenue by having to briefly curtail the business alongside everyone else in the neighborhood.
In addition to the store’s acute challenges with loss prevention, Megyesi suffered a near-fatal heart attack several months ago, which shouldered Norris with 100% of the administrative burden. Around then — just this past summer — vandals began targeting the store. They broke the glass on the front door, terrorized the staff, and eventually became brazen enough to smash out a large section plate glass on the store’s west-facing facade.
Meanwhile, Megyesi’s absence caused the business’s quarterly taxes to be overlooked and to go unpaid, which drew the impatient, ruthless ire of the Denver Department of Finance. The agency dropped off a scant two (2) notices of unpaid taxes before locking Norris and Megyesi out of their own business without considering a more copacetic solution. “They came in twice, left a card, and then locked us out,” Norris said.
The irony here is that, if a business owes taxes, one would think they should be allowed to remain open and operational so that they could have a chance to make the money to pay said debts. Yet, this sort of logic does not resonate with tax collectors who have their emotions lobotomized before being sent out into the field.
Down But Not Out
Mutiny was saved from the tax man by a collective of nearly 1,000 Denver friends and supporters.
Upon being shut down by the city, Norris and Megyesi were beside themselves as their mutual boyhood dream and livelihood had been ripped from their grasp. The impending tragedy was not to be, however, as friend of the store Kyle Sutherland launched a GoFundMe campaign intended to meet and surpass the store’s $35,000 tax bill along with the attached GoFundMe fees. The total goal was just over 42,000 — 42,126 to be exact. The last three digits are Norris’s and Megyesi’s lucky numbers.
As Norris recently explained in an interview with the Denver Gazette, “Matt and I chose 126 as our random lucky number when we were teenagers. You’ll notice it all over the store. It’s sort of like when people say Jesus appears to them on toast. If he can appear on toast, he can appear anywhere. It’s a good-karma thing.”
Word of the shutdown and the crowdfunding campaign spread through the community like wildfire, thanks to good old-fashioned word of mouth and new-fashioned social media. Thanks to the networks of Sutherland, local artist standout R. Alan Brooks, and dozens of others, the goal was met and surpassed in a mere 24 hours by 925 donors. This uncanny overnight fundraising effort, especially in the midst of an economic downturn (read that as a recession) is a testament to Morris and Megyesi popularity and good karma. “We are overwhelmed with goodwill,” Norris says. “We went from tears of sorrow to tears of joy in 24 hours.”
On October 29, 2022, Mutiny will hold a “Thank You Party” for all the friends who donated to the crowdfunding campaign which facilitated their resurgence. The FREE event will be held at the Oriental Theater from 7 to 11 p.m. and will feature performances by Bolonium, Team Nonexistent, Kodama, Magic Mo, DJ Konz, and MC R. Alan Brooks.
All Images Courtesy of: Mutiny Info Cafe