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Update: Nathans Building Still on the Market

Posted by Ruth Samuelson on Jul. 6, 2009, at 6:06 pm

I just reached Ronald Shapiro, a lawyer who represents the owner of Nathans’ building.

He says that restaurant owner Carol Joynt terminated the lease herself, and that the Georgetown building is still available for purchase.

With the building on the market, Joynt had recently signed a month-to-month lease, according to the Washington Business Journal.

That agreement “could go on until they sell the building,” said Joynt in the piece, “We go with the flow. If a new owner wants us, we are there. If they don’t want us, we go.”

The owners, the Heon family, have been landlords in the area for roughly 80 years and own several nearby buildings, according to Shapiro.

“They have received some purchase offers. The offers have not yet been accepted. There have also been some unsolicited leasing offers,” he added.

Joynt has just updated her restaurant’s website with a republished blog post about the whole landlord/tenant saga.

Here’s an itty bitty piece:

Then, out of the blue, the landlords filed suit against me in landlord-tenant court. They wanted us evicted. I spent 10 days dodging a process server, who at times banged on my front door. (Disguises help. Ladders at the garden wall to the neighbors help, too). The court date was set for June 15. They threatened to take my house.

So, we came to an agreement. I had to pay $100,000 to the city to bring the property taxes up to date, and another $30,000 in recent back rent that had been withheld. Plus another several thousand in outstanding BID taxes, and $11,000 in other taxes. That money was a loan on my house. Very painful. But then, when I looked at it, I realized that for every dollar I made at Nathans, after taxes, half went back to Nathans on property taxes, building upkeep, insurance and rent….when we fell behind. Personally, I was always struggling, and hawking personal property to come up with money. And over 12 years! Local businessmen who were good at the game said, “Face it, you work for the landlords.”