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It’s the end of the line for Hubba Hubba in Cambridge
Owner M.J. Pullins says she’s financially unable to keep the adult shop open after decades in business.
Adult entertainment store Hubba Hubba is closing its doors after serving the alternative and LGBTQ+ community in the area for four decades.
In an Instagram post last week, owner M.J. Pullins wrote that the store is ceasing operations on Nov. 24, citing rising costs, “miserly landlords,” and an economic climate that is not conducive to small businesses.
Pullins wrote that the challenges “made this a fight not worth fighting anymore.”
According to the store’s website, Susan Phelps founded it in 1978, mixing local punk fashion with flea market finds and sexual health products. The store evolved as nightclubs and the alternative community in Boston changed, expanding to include the LGBTQ+ community.
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Phelps died in 2017, and in 2019, Pullins used her savings from a recent divorce to purchase the store and keep the legacy going.
In September, Pullins created a GoFundMe page to raise funds to keep the store open. She said she has sunk all her savings, including her retirement, into the store and often went without paychecks to keep the business running.
“I’ve put so much into this store to try to keep it going,” Pullins said in a phone interview with Boston.com on Monday.
Her accountant warned her for years to “shut it down,” but Pullins kept saying, “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”
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Pullins says the business has operated at a loss for the past few years. The fundraiser was a last-ditch effort to keep the store afloat. But as of Tuesday, it had only raised a little over $10,000, which isn’t enough to cover rent.
To keep going, Pullins said she would also need thousands of dollars to repair the damaged walls and floors in the store’s below-grade space, which were damaged by water.
She says the wetness in the walls created mold, impacting her health and that of her three employees.
Plus, she says her store was impacted by recent city construction and the removal of parking outside to make way for bike lanes, making it difficult for out-of-towners to visit.
“We are the only store of our ilk in New England,” Pullins said. “We pull from New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut, and whatnot. We carry products that help disabled people, and nobody can get here.”
Pullins added that it didn’t help that her lease was hiked by $2,000 a month.
“It just snowballed,” she said.
But the most challenging part of closing shop now, according to Pullins, is that with the political climate driving many LGBTQ+ people to the city from other parts of the country, a store like this is needed more than ever.
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Pullins hopes that someone else steps up and opens a similar sex positive alternative store.
“It’s the customers I will miss the most,” she said. “I’ve always joked that I have the one job in the world where I can actually sell you something that will make your life better.”
Pullins said the store’s beauty is that “it is truly for everyone.”
There has been an outpouring on social media in response to the closure news, with many saying they are sad to see it go.
Previous customers say the store was there as it helped them transition, enter their punk world with spiked necklaces and Doc Martens, or helped them learn more about themselves.
As one person wrote, “You will be missed.”
The store is liquidating its inventory and running a 10% discount on all items.
The closure is leaving a hole in the community. The nearest adult entertainment stores are Good Vibrations in Brookline, Stardust Video in Everett, and Amazing Intimate Essentials and Smoke Shop in Medford.
In her post, Pullins wrote, in the words of the store’s founder, “Go forth and be fabulous.”
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