STRAFFORD — In late May, Phoebe Mix opened the Occasional Rooster, a cafe in the annex of Post Office in Strafford village. The opening sparked enthusiasm among Strafford residents, who had been without a cafe for years.
But on July 20, less than two months after she opened it, Mix closed the cafe, citing “withering attacks” that harmed the reputation of the business and its financial standing, according to a post she published on the Strafford Listserv.
Over the summer, residents learned that Mix was leasing an apartment in the same building as the cafe to a male tenant against whom a female Strafford resident had filed a domestic violence or stalking final protective order on the grounds that he had caused her bodily harm and threatened her safety.
The news, and the subsequent shuttering of the Occasional Rooster, has inspired strong reactions among Strafford residents. Some have defended Mix, while others have criticized her decision to let the man stay in the apartment.
“A restraining order is not nothing,” Sarah Root, a Strafford resident and friend of the woman, said in a phone interview. “I want to stick up for women.”
In the week leading up to the closure, business declined significantly, Mix said. There was “just no one last week,” she recalled. “And then I was really quite angry.”
Mix attributed the dip in business to residents boycotting the cafe, though she acknowledged that she couldn’t be certain that was the reason traffic slowed.
According to court documents, the tenant caused “serious bodily injury” to the woman “by slamming her hand in a car door” several years ago. The documents also stated that the man told the woman that he “knows how to hide a body, has help to do so and would otherwise ruin someone’s life if given the opportunity.”
A Grafton County Circuit Court granted the plaintiff’s protective order in 2022, which prohibited the man from coming within 500 feet of her. The order also prohibited him from contacting the plaintiff, abusing her family and damaging her property, and required that he relinquish all weapons that could be used to threaten or cause abuse.
In 2023, the court granted a one-year extension based on the plaintiff’s concern that the man remained a risk to her safety given his past threats.
Last winter, the court granted a five-year extension to the order, which the plaintiff requested after learning that the man was living in Strafford.
Mix said she knew the man had a protective order against him when she took him on as a tenant in October 2023.
“It didn’t have anything to do with me,” she said.
The tenant moved out of the property after his lease ended in June, Mix said.
A number of people have flocked to the Strafford Listserv in the past weeks to defend Mix and offer their condolences regarding the cafe’s closure.
“What happened to the woman protected by the restraining order was wrong. But what happened to Phoebe was equally wrong,” Strafford resident Nancy Butler said in a Listserv post from Aug. 19. “Nothing she did justifies acting as judge, jury, and executioner to destroy her reputation and her business.”
Residents from other towns also chimed in, even with limited information about the controversy.
“I don’t know anyone involved in the current sad situation (whatever it is) concerning (I guess?) a previous occupant of the now-cafe building,” Cynthia Shelton, of Thetford, wrote on the Listserv.
Others, like Root, voiced support for the woman who filed the protective order.
“It may not have happened to you, you may not have seen it happen but it did in fact happen to someone and two judges ruled they needed to be protected. This should be undisputed!” Root wrote on Aug. 12.
While multiple people have posted on the Listserv defending Mix, few have publicly voiced their criticisms.
“Since the concerned citizens will not make themselves known, there’s no way to open a dialogue,” Kevin Lynch, a neighbor of Mix, said in an interview.
Several people who have privately shown their support for the woman who filed the protective order declined to discuss the situation with the Valley News out of respect for her privacy.
The Justin Smith Morrill Homestead canceled an event for their fundraiser auction that was scheduled to take place at the cafe on July 4th weekend. Mix alleges the event was canceled because of the controversial views surrounding her tenant.
“One board member explained to me that some people were so afraid that they would not participate in the auction if it were held in the coffee shop,” she wrote in the Listserv post published on Aug. 10.
But the homestead’s board denies that the controversy was related to the decision to move the event.
The site’s board initially chose to hold the event at the cafe because the state was scheduled to do work on the site’s drainage system which meant that people weren’t allowed on the property, board member John Dumville said.
But when the state suddenly granted them access to the grounds, they decided to move the event to the homestead “because we want to encourage people to come to the site,” Dumville, who lives in South Royalton, said.
“We all want the cafe to succeed and Phoebe has always been a good friend of the site and a personal friend,” he said.
The Listserv posts about the controversy have grown more infrequent in the past week, but the doors of the Occasional Rooster remain closed, and Strafford is yet again without a coffee shop to call its own.
“I would very much like to reopen it,” Mix said. “Let’s see how the dust settles.”
