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With another loss, The Pinch feels its name

By , Daily Memphian Updated: March 22, 2025 10:00 AM CT | Published: March 20, 2025 4:00 AM CT

When North Main Street in The Pinch District was dark last year because the streetlights didn’t work — and Memphis Light, Gas and Water wasn’t responding — Comeback Coffee co-owner Hayes McPherson ultimately strung up lights himself.

He paid for them — strings of neat, white lights — crisscrossing over several hundred feet of public thoroughfare, two stories above traffic, and covered the utility bill by running the conduit through Comeback’s space at 358 N. Main St. 


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When the coffee shop closes April 11, along with sunny plant shop, Greenhaus, at 356 N. Main St., McPherson will continue to pay the bill, a symbol of how much merchants in The Pinch feel about their area of the world.

The news last week that Comeback Coffee and Greenhaus — a contiguous, 100-plus feet of remodeled, active storefront on a ghost town of a street — were closing was another gut punch to the neighborhood, the oldest in the city.

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Topics

Comeback Coffee The Pinch District B.J. Chester-Tamayo Alcenia's Alex Turley Subscriber Only Hayes McPherson

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Jane Roberts

Jane Roberts

Jane Roberts has reported in Memphis for more than 20 years. As a senior member of The Daily Memphian staff, she was assigned to the medical beat during the COVID-19 pandemic. She also has done in-depth work on other medical issues facing our community, including shortages of specialists in local hospitals. She covered K-12 education here for years and later the region’s transportation sector, including Memphis International Airport and FedEx Corp.


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