Of the 11 current businesses sited at the Millworks Business Center in the northern part of town, most are doing well, owner and landlord Allison Moody told the News last week.

But some, she said, are poised to move elsewhere in the coming months and a couple left recently under less-than-favorable circumstances.

After six years of selling and making wine and ‘shine, Tuck-N-Red’s was forced by court order to permanently vacate their production and retail space last month.

The business opened in summer 2020 by self-proclaimed “hillbillies and hippies” Tucker Thompson (“Tuck”) and Charles Harrell (“Red”). In addition to the alcohol operation, Tuck-N-Red’s hosted a variety of live music performances, benefits and gatherings. June 16 was its last day.

The micro-distillery and winery announced its departure on social media with a post that read: “Time to Roll Out and Roll on! To OUR people, ONE LOVE. Thank you for all your support over the years! As for Yellow Springs ... We’re no longer ‘A GOOD FIT.’” The post also featured an image of a motorcyclist making a lewd gesture and driving into the sunset.

Under the advice of her attorney, Moody had no comment on Tuck-N-Red’s eviction.

A public records request with the Village shows that Tuck-N-Red’s relationship with Moody as well as local government became strained over the last year — largely due to zoning code violations and breaches of their lease agreement.

Correspondence between Moody and Yellow Springs Police show that Moody sought Village enforcement of Tuck-N-Red’s conditional use agreement — which Planning Commission unanimously approved in 2020 — of doing public-facing business only between the hours of noon and 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and manufacturing 7 a.m.–7 p.m. on Sunday.

Live shows and performances would frequently extend beyond those hours, records showed.

Several such occasions were recurring “Twerk Fests” — parties that spotlighted evocative dancing — which former Village Planning Administrator Meg Leatherman maintained violated Village restrictions on “sexually oriented businesses.” Security footage from one of those events shows several attendees breaking and entering into a separate leased space at Millworks to film themselves undressing; another tape shows an alleged sexual assault occur beside a shared Millworks bathroom.

Another code-related infraction was Tuck-N-Red’s use of a Millworks office space for food production — oil fryers were occasionally used to provide snacks for events. Once notified by Moody, Miami Township Fire-Rescue shut that operation down.

Mainly owing to Tuck-N-Red’s hours of operation and the on-site manufacturing of goods occupying more than the approved 30% of the total space, Village Manager Johnnie Burns sent Thompson and Harrell a mandate last December to correct all business practices and abide by the parameters of the conditional use permit. 

On Jan. 16, Burns sent a second letter: a notice of the revocation of the conditional use.

In an email to the News earlier this year, Tuck-N-Red’s attorney Matthew Cull said that the Village’s dispensation of zoning regulations was “erroneously imposed or tenuous at best.”

“It’s clear Tuck-N-Red’s misunderstood what the 2020 conditional use authorized,” he wrote. “Tuck-N-Red’s has operated in good faith since the beginning. There comes a point where one could begin to question the Village of Yellow Springs’ motives.”

Despite the revocation of the distillery’s conditional use permit, it continued doing some business, hosting hard rock shows, battle of the band competitions and memorial gatherings over the next several months.

All the while, court records show that Moody launched an eviction case through Xenia Municipal Court that began in March. By early May, a judge ruled that all unpaid rents were owed to Moody, and that the business must officially depart. The last event held at the location was on Sunday, June 14 — a celebration of life for recently deceased villager Carl Moore.

The last time Tuck-N-Red’s appeared in the News was in the police report two weeks ago: Security footage caught a former employee causing property damage and absconding with $2,000 worth of artwork from the business park.

Now, the 5,000-square-foot space at the center of Millworks sits unoccupied.

Though Moody declined to remark on the former tenant’s departure, she said she’s looking forward to moving someone in.

“It’s our policy to always offer available spaces to existing tenants first,” Moody said. “We always want to encourage them to grow on site if possible. And we’re already in conversations.”

More at Millworks

Tuck-N-Red’s isn’t the only recent departure from Millworks. Kyle Truitt, of Truitt Fitness, packed up his weights and left Millworks in April.

Since summer of 2024, Truitt has operated his personal training gym as a subtenant of Nuke’s Warehouse — a baseball training facility in one of the larger industrial spaces at the business park. A personal disagreement between Truitt and Nuke’s latest owner, Charlie Miller, led to the split.

Though Moody was remorseful over Truitt’s departure, she said that Nuke’s Warehouse is now poised to expand its footprint.

The local electronic scooter rental operation headquartered at Millworks — Yellow Springs Scooter, LLC — also closed up shop this year. Moody said the business-owning Lawson brothers opted not to reopen the seasonal business once winter passed.

There are likely additional departures on the horizon.

Earlier this summer, YS Baking Company announced that it’s set to close in a few months. YS Baking Co. started in early 2022 at Millworks as a polished kitchen with an emphasis on catering and, occasionally, pick-up and delivery services of their sweet and savory goods. Then, in 2024, the business expanded to a downtown storefront at 108 Dayton St.

As Moody noted, Baking Company owners Karina Tafolla and Rob Houk entirely renovated their space — turning “an empty office space into a commercial production kitchen” — and they’re looking to sell a great deal of their cooking and baking equipment.

Another departure: The Spencer Building Group. Moody said Mike Spencer is looking to downsize his operations onto his own personal property. Village Solar is expected to expand its operations and storage into that space, Moody said.

It’s not all “see you later” at Millworks, though.

Blue Sky Technologies; Yellow Springs Home, Inc.; Yellow Springs Brewery; Heather Horton Counseling; Sculptor’s Emporium; Studio Uncommon; Village Solar; Nuke’s Warehouse and Lark Overland all have no intentions of going anywhere, Moody said.

In fact, the latter — the village’s only modular camper dealership, Lark Overland — is about to grow in a major way.

Within the month, Moody said crews are breaking ground on a new 9,000-square-foot warehouse for Lark Overland to store and sell their campers. The new facility will sit on Millworks’ northern most section — the large field that abuts Fairfield Pike and the bike path on the eastern side.

“Lark Overland is really thriving in the village, even though they’ve only been here for a little over two years,” Moody said. “They’ve outgrown their current building.”

So much so, Moody added, that the business intends to hang onto its existing 4,750-square-foot warehouse even after its new building is complete.

Around the new building will be native landscaping — a flowery prairie resembling the Women’s Park along Corry, Moody said — and a walkway that adjoins the bike path. Additional parking spaces will also be added.

On the northern edge of the Millworks property, right where it touches Fairfield, will be Moody’s piece-de-resistance: a gabion retention wall. Relying on 7,000-year-old technology that can be traced back to ancient Egypt, gabion walls are stacked mesh cages filled with stones, rocks and other minerals to quell erosion.

“So that bank there was just covered in weeds, and it is really difficult to mow and maintain,” Moody explained. “But the biggest issue is that it’s been eroding. It’s holding up our north lot, and soon, a new building.”

At the base of this gabion wall, Moody said she’ll also install a bioswale to help mitigate stormwater runoff.

All told, Moody said she hopes to be done with this new project and have Lark Overland installed in the new building by this September.