A Bobcat operator was digging ditches for new plumbing inside the old Mort’s Deli building Monday morning as remodeling moves along for two new restaurants, under the ownership of former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan. Yet immediately next door, at 1037 Swarthmore, owners of the a la Tarte bistro and bakery had left a handwritten message in chalk on a blackboard in the front window. It read: ‘Dear Clients and Friends, ‘Thank you for your continual support and friendship over the years. Sorry we have to go! But, we have a lifetime of wonderful memories from the last 12 years. Thank you!!! ‘Love, ‘Bonnie, Bert, Adeline and the a la Tarte staff.’ On Sunday afternoon, shortly after closing for the day following a typically frantic morning of serving meals amidst the farmers’ market crowd, owners Bert and Bonnie Yellen told their 15 employees (regular and part-time) that they had decided to end their lease, effective the next day. The employees had long anticipated a sale of the restaurant, since the Yellens had been openly searching for a buyer for more than two years. But they hadn’t expected an abrupt closing. ‘We’ve been trying to sell the place ever since the landlord (Palisades Partners) doubled our rent,’ to about $4.50 a square foot, Bert Yellen told the Palisadian-Post early Sunday evening as he helped move furniture. ‘I wanted to get some of our investment back by selling to another restaurant owner who would buy all our equipment, take over the lease, and inherit our clientele. The landlord insisted on maintaining a French restaurant [in order to avoid direct competition with other tenants on the street, including Terri’s, Dante’s and the new Mort’s], and I brought in about a dozen viable candidates. But the landlord turned everybody down or was inflexible about a new lease. These guys only wanted to give a five-year lease without a five-year option, and that’s just not realistic. It would take about three years just to recoup the remodeling and upgrade costs, and then the landlord could double the rent again. I had a prospective buyer who owns successful restaurant in Beverly Hills, but she wouldn’t agree to a lease like that.’ Said Bonnie Yellen, ‘This is the saddest thing I’ve ever had to do. We’ve been here 12 years and we wanted to keep it open until we found a buyer, but we’ve been losing money and we can’t afford this.’ In fact, Bert admitted, they had only paid their old rent the past three months. ‘We were upset that the landlord couldn’t agree to work out a deal with one of our potential buyers,’ he said. ‘But I told the landlord I would pay all our back rent [an estimated $13,500] with a certified check once they agreed to a buyer.’ The Yellens have been absentee owners the past two years after moving to La Paz, where they have been renting a house and converting a two-story building a block from the Gulf of California into a new restaurant that will feature a combination of American, French and Mexican food. Bonnie is also going to build her own professional kitchen in their new home where she can teach cooking classes. The Yellens donated all their remaining food ingredients and supplies such as large bags of flour and sugar to Bellwood Bakery in Brentwood (‘We’ve always been helpful to each other,’ Bert said), but on Monday morning loaded a rental truck with all their furniture and sent it down to La Paz for the new eatery. They had to leave behind the colorful wall murals depicting French countryside scenes.
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