In Mint Hill, N.C., it does not take long before there is a mention of Forest Trail. Whether it is for a morning coffee, an afternoon meeting or just a place to catch up, much of the small town cycles through the little house. Separate rooms are filled with studying students, working parents and quiet readers, while the lawn has kids weaving between the picnic tables.

Forest Trail feels less like a business and more like Mint Hill’s living room – a place where community comes together to support something of its own. But just as owner Colin Hughes had built that welcoming space, its stability was shaken, forcing him, his family and the business out of their home and into an uncertain next chapter.

The Family Behind It

Colin is a salesman, carpenter, comedian, actor, husband, father, friend … the list goes on. But most importantly, he is the owner and face of one of the staple shops in Mint Hill: Forest Trail.

Originally from upstate New York, Colin spent 16 years living in Los Angeles, Calif., with his wife Kristen. He was a stand-up comedian and Kristen was a seamstress. When they welcomed their daughter, Eloise, 6, into the world, they were faced with a tough decision.

“Everything in L.A. is an hour away. We would be raising our kid in the car,” Colin said.

They were worried about sending Eloise to a good school but living in a bad house, or sending her to a lesser school but being financially comfortable. The Hughes family had to decide between staying in L.A. or moving.

Colin compiled a 116-slide deck featuring 17 cities without naming the cities. From there, Kristen and he landed between three cities: Louisville, Kentucky; Asheville or Charlotte in North Carolina.

After flying out to Charlotte for a weekend, Kristen came back optimistic, even though she was unsettled by everyone calling her ma’am.

“I think we can do it,” she said, “but the only thing is we can’t move to Mint Hill because there’s nothing there.” In 2020, they moved to Mint Hill, a small town about thirty minutes outside of Charlotte.

The Startup

Colin had been bouncing around from sales jobs with breweries and coffee suppliers, but he was in search of finding something more suitable for him. In 2023, everything changed.

A building on the main road in Mint Hill was home to the Mint Hill Coffee and Social House. With the cafe’s sudden closure in June, the 1931 house was about to be vacant.

When Kristen told him the news of the closure, Colin drove to 7201 Matthews Mint Hill Road and asked for the owner, eventually leading him to the contact information of the landlord.

After talking with the landlord and planning independently, Colin went back home to present news to Kristen.

“Okay, so, we are buying a coffee shop,” he said. “This is what’s happening. It is happening, and you can’t talk me out of it.”

“We can’t do that,” Kristen replied.

“I think we can,” said Colin. “Here’s what is going to happen.”

Colin took a loan from his parents to get the equipment, buy other supplies currently in the shop, put down the security deposit and begin renovating. With rent being due the next month, he had no more than 15 days to completely gut the 1,500-square-foot home so they could open.

The building had mildew and other unidentified substances growing, so Colin ripped everything out and deep-cleaned the whole place. Crumbling walls and funky smells did not stop him.

Having a skill in carpentry, Colin was able to build chairs and benches, and with Kristen’s sewing skills she crafted all the cushions.

A coffee shop was starting to come together.

In contrast to the renovation work, picking the name was one of the easiest decisions in the whole journey of the shop. In Mint Hill there are many farms, many banks and many dentists. There is also an abundance of nature trails. One of the most scenic trails in the town is Stevens Creek Nature Preserve.

Eloise is a big fan of walking these trails with her dad. Every time they get ready to walk, he asks her which trail she wants to go to. Most of the time she picks Stevens Creek Nature Preserve, or as she calls it, “forest trail.”

The shop, named Forest Trail, opened on July 7, 2023.

In its beginning days, Forest Trail did not have a sudden surge of customers. In fact, most days they were making only about $400.

“That was pretty shitty,” said Colin.

Some weeks the shop was barely able to cover payroll. This was not what Colin was imagining when he first opened Forest Trail.

Along with coffee, Colin was able to get a liquor license for the shop, so they could sell alcohol. This allowed them to stay open later while still getting business.

They also started to do food with items like breakfast sandwiches. But what Colin really wanted to do was add stuff for lunch since the business during lunch was horrendous.

One day, he decided he was going to make a calzone-type item. It did not work. So, he continued to change the recipe and started to put breakfast foods in it. The breakfast stuffed calzone named “The Stinger” became a wildly popular lunch item.

Saturdays started to become busier and often that one day’s earnings could cover payroll for the week.

That was until the oven broke in the middle of a Saturday rush. Colin went and bought multiple toaster ovens so that they could remain open and serve the community. Then he found a replacement oven that same day.

He drove an hour and a half to pick it up, only to try to plug it in and see that it was the wrong plug.

He finally figured it out… and then that oven broke shortly after.

“We were always barely getting by so we had to do things like that in the middle of service because we couldn’t lose the money,” Colin said.

A huge help joined the Forest Trail community in summer 2024. Sarah Halsell, the current general manager, went in looking for a part-time job and left with a new full-time position. When she met Colin, she knew she wanted to work there.

“He’s a guy that’s going to be fun to work for, and he’s going to care about the community that he builds,” said Halsell.

Her knowledge about coffee came from working at an Italian shop in Washington, and some might call her a coffee connoisseur.

She found her passion in coffee and continued to learn about it, eventually bringing her skill to Forest Trail. Now she is one of the most recognizable faces of the team and social media account.

Halsell has taught Colin so much about coffee and has given suggestions that created Forest Trail’s most popular drinks. The shop faced many difficulties, like ovens and staffing during its starting months. However, they were still able to bring together a strong community, especially with the help of Halsell.

The Main Event

Forest Trail has hosted events like Kid’s New Year’s Eve, Sip and Paints, Mom’s Night, and more. However, the shop is best known for a weekly event: Friday Night Trivia. Being the comedian that he is, Colin hosts trivia himself, and the community adores it.

The first round begins at 7 p.m., but the 15 picnic tables on the front lawn are filled by 6:30 p.m. with teams arguing about what their name will be.

There are normally five rounds consisting of 10 questions each. The rounds are all themed, typically starting and ending with general knowledge rounds, and there is always a picture round. This is where 10 pictures are accompanied by a theme like “one-name celebrities.” In this case, there would be pictures of people such as Eminem, Adele or Madonna.

While themes change each Friday from categories like “words containing ‘s-u-m’” to “geography of the Middle East in the 18th century,” the energy of the community stays the same. Often, Colin finds himself bringing out more tables and chairs to fit everyone.

People from all over Mint Hill and the neighboring towns come to Forest Trail for Colin. He truly is the attraction at trivia.

He consistently cares about the community and makes jokes with everyone. His humor can range from “for the kids” to “R-rated” but he always has everyone laughing. Colin will always be a comedian at heart, and the Mint Hill community loves him for it.

As trivia is going on for the two hours, people are still ordering food and drinks. Halsell is one of the many people trivia attendees hear calling out drink names, running up and down the shop steps and assisting Colin in counting trivia scores.

At the end of trivia, Colin always announces the teams from last to first place. The winners are often offered a bottle of wine, soap or candles. The losers are offered a creepy object from the attic, a broken toaster or sometimes a high five.

The two hours of Colin cracking jokes and giving people a hard time always seem to bring the Mint Hill community back each week.

“I had never been to Mint Hill and didn’t know what to expect, but I had such a great time, and Colin was so fun,” said Nina Balawejder, a sophomore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Colin does a great job of welcoming people who are not at Forest Trail every week. For frequent trivia-goers, everyone knows that he repeats the question twice and then runs through all of them again at the end of the round.

For being Balawejder’s first time, she did not know this and asked if Colin could repeat one of the questions. He had a quick clapback calling her out.

“Don’t worry, guys, she is new, so she gets a pass, but only this time,” he said. “Don’t ask again.”

Colin has a very cryptic humor that may seem off-putting to people who do not know him. But once you experience Colin, he becomes more than just the Forest Trail owner.

Lexie Woods and Isabelle Illsley are two faces seen at trivia every week that have developed a relationship with Colin and his family thanks to Forest Trail.

“When I got my permit, the first place I drove to was Forest Trail,” said Illsley.

Colin has created friendships with so many of his customers and has brought together a community like no other.

“He is like my second dad and Forest Trail is like my second home,” said Woods.

So, when Forest Trail was faced with the unimaginable, the community surrounding it did everything they could to help.

The Implosion

“We smelled a problem very early on,” said Colin.

A worker came to pump the septic system at the building but gave Colin news that was not the best.

“You have to shut down this side yard,” said the worker. “It’s a danger.”

So, after being open for only three months, in October 2023, Forest Trail lost some of their outdoor space.

They continued business as normal, not losing any customers, granted they never knew what was going on. All they knew was that the side yard where the septic system was located was off limits – reasonably so.

Over the next three months, Colin started taking note of how many cars were unable to find parking in their small gravel lot behind the building.

“There was like 20 cars not able to turn in, and that’s not a lot if you’re Starbucks,” Colin said, “but for us, 20 cars a day could be $400.”

Once he started to realize the compounded earnings per week he was losing, Colin started to look for a future home for Forest Trail.

During his search over the following two years, Forest Trail’s business only increased. Trivia attendance was going up, homemade syrups were getting popular, but the space was barely holding on. “This smells way different than any other smell,” Halsell said to Colin one morning. He recognized it was different than the normal septic stench.

Halsell hesitantly turned to Colin.

“Today could be the day,” she said.

On Wednesday March 11, the Forest Trail Instagram made a post that only they were expecting:

We hate to do this, but we need to close tomorrow for an emergency repair.

On Thursday March 12, they made another post:

We wanted to let you know that we won’t be open tomorrow morning. We have a plan in place to host our beloved Trivia Night. It has been a long day, and we need a bit of time to process and plan.

On Friday March 13, Colin posted a video.

In the video he explained briefly what was going on, from the window of a trailer. The septic system completely imploded, and the building could no longer operate normally.

“I like broke down,” said Colin.

It was a very emotional time for him as he was carrying the weight of a business, a staff, his family and the community.

“I felt like I let them all down,” he said through tears. “And my daughter was going to be sad. I knew that and that killed me.”

Colin cares so much about the entire Mint Hill community so he did everything in his power to keep them together.

He had port-a-potties brought on site and everything would be served in disposable cups since there was no water.

The community showed up.

Dozens of people came to play trivia, get drinks and just show their support for the Hughes family and Forest Trail.

In the following days, Forest Trail did its best to stay open for at least some of the day. They were still in the building but had no working bathrooms and did not know how long they would be able to operate. Then, on April 1, Forest Trail became Forest Trail-er.

Moving to Wheels

Colin and his team had to move into a trailer parked in the business’ backyard.

All their equipment managed to move into the trailer with them. Their beloved espresso machine was stubborn and never sat level, but nonetheless, it made coffee. The only thing that the trailer could not have was alcohol.

Shortly after the change, Colin began posting more on the Forest Trail Instagram.

Come buy a coffee – get a picnic table free!

It was clear they were leaving the property in the coming days. Colin was asking anyone to come pick up whatever they wanted from the lawn – tables, chairs, kids’ play equipment – everything had to go.

The sign to the house that read “Forest Trail” with their signature opossum logo had been ripped off. The marquee sign in the lawn showing their events was nothing but a frame. The building looked like a vacant, run-down, and maybe even haunted house.

There was no sign of Forest Trail ever being there.

On the other hand, Forest Trail-er was traveling around. As they were no longer able to be on the property, they had to find a place to camp.

Another local Mint Hill business, Spotlight Performing Arts Academy, was just down the road and offered their parking lot as a base for the trailer. Colin took it there and parked it for the week, open from about 7 a.m. until 1:30 p.m., or until their generator needed a break.

Forest Trail customers followed the social media posts leading them to the Spotlight parking lot to show their support for the business facing an uncertain future.

Questions like how long Forest Trail would be a trailer, and if Colin needed any help cycled many times from customers. He never had an answer for them.

The trailer continued to do pop-up markets on the weekends and found local lots to park and serve during the week. Bouncing from Spotlight to the Food Lion parking lot, the trailer was getting new upgrades daily.

On April 22, over a month after the shutdown, Forest Trail signed the lease to a new location – and they were staying in Mint Hill.

Colin and the Forest Trail staff have been nothing but resilient during the time they have been facing this challenge.

Since the startup, they have been dealing with septic issues but never imagined it would get to the point that it did. They were able to wake up every day and continue to serve the community with a smiling face.

“We’re just excited to see where it goes and be able to be a place for Mint Hill as a community,” said Halsell.

Forest Trail has found its new home at 8400 Fairview Road, across the street from the Mint Hill Fire Department. Colin himself has been working to renovate the inside of Suite A from the moment they signed the lease.

With big plans, full hearts and a community of supporters, Forest Trail is hopeful they will be open in late October 2026.

But for now, Forest Trail-er stands outside their new location, continuing to serve the community that has stood by them through the unimaginable. Morning coffees, afternoon hangouts and Friday Night Trivia will be back for the small town in no time.

“Stay scrappy” is their motto, and as they have proven, no one does it better than Forest Trail.

By Meredith Buckanavage
Published 05/06/26. Updated 09/30/26