Alex Bistro & Bar (2033 East 14th St.), located in the Hanna Building in PlayhouseSqaure, has closed. The restaurant, which opened last summer, did not open for service today.
“We are closed now; we lost our lease,” says GM Danny Murray. “I think the landlord wanted us out to get somebody else in there. They pulled the plug on us.”
Murray explained that there was no written lease that would have preserved their right to continue operating.
Murray added that last month was the restaurant’s best to date.
This article appears in Jul 10-16, 2013.
The landlord sounds like an asshole. Once you know a place does well, pull the plug on them so you can use their sales figures to charge someone else more money.
On the flip side of this though, the GM never thought that it would be a good idea to get some kind of lease in writing? That doesn’t sound shady at all to you when the landlord says, “oh, we don’t need anything on paper or signed, you can trust me!”
Disappointing. My wife and I went there last weekend on a whim and it was great. Good food. Good tunes. Dick landlord apparently with a moron for a GM. Who operates a business in someone else’s building without a lease? Got to be more to this story.
Initial thought of why restaurants are constantly burning and turning in the playhouse square area would lead one to believe it’s a hard market to survive in but upon further investigation I’m shown it’s just ruthless, shameless greed. Quite a shame the bistro closed along with other SUCCESSFUL, POPULAR restaurants because of power/money hungry jerks with big heads, big egos, and unsatisfied wives. Makes me reconsider doing ANYTHING in that area.
Did I say wives? Woops…meant lives.
Mmmm, this doesn’t sound right. You didn’t get a quote from the landlord? This journalism is suspect. I am frequently around there and have been to alex’s several times. They definitely weren’t doing well.