Bob Benton has signed a long-term lease to keep his sporting goods store on Swarthmore. ‘ la Tarte restaurant (next to Mort’s Deli) is up for sale. And Karen Richardson will move her Intima lingerie store from Antioch to an empty storefront on Swarthmore (see Intima story, page 7). These are the latest developments on the 1000 block of Swarthmore, a half-block stretch that has been in turmoil since March, when merchants learned that they faced major rent hikes by Palisades Partners, a multi-family trust that owns 18 of the 22 retail and commercial properties on the street. These rent increases would bring the monthly going rate from about $2.50 a sq.ft. to above $4. While the merchants would no longer have to live with month-to-month leases, they would still have to commit to 3- to 5-year leases. “We decided about five or six months ago to stay, but I’ve had to kind of keep it to myself until we completed our lease negotiations,” Benton said in an interview Wednesday morning. In fact, he was already paying his higher rent for months before receiving a signed new lease last Friday. “It hurt to pay the new rent, but I had to be out there buying merchandise for this fall and for next spring,” Benton said. “I couldn’t afford to be held captive to lease negotiations.” Did Benton gain anything in the protracted negotiations involving an attorney who has been representing about a half-dozen of the Swarthmore merchants? “No, there wasn’t one concession made,” Benton replied, smiling despite the obvious challenge he now faces to increase his store’s revenue in the face of much higher overhead. “But I’m looking at this as a new situation with my landlord. I really do believe you have to have a positive landlord-tenant relationship. So I have to make the new lease work. “I’m going to tweak our business to make it as lean and mean as possible, and we’ll be receptive to carrying new products,” Benton continued. “But I’m also counting on people staying in town to do their shopping. I received incredible emotional support from the community this spring’all those letters to the editor. I hope that now translates into business support.” Meanwhile, ‘ la Tarte owners Bert and Bonnie Yellen had been quietly shopping their popular French restaurant for several weeks until deciding to post a “for sale” announcement on craigslist.org last Friday. The ad said: “Great French bistro/bakery with super large kitchen…2,400 sq. ft. Looks like you walked into Provence.” When interviewed Tuesday evening, Bert said he wanted to “make it clear that we’re not selling because of any rent increase. We have a good relationship with the landlord and they’ve offered to help us find somebody to buy the place. Basically, we’re tired, after nearly 10 years building the business, and Bonnie [‘ la Tarte’s renowned pastry chef] is still recovering from an automobile accident a year ago.” He said that Bonnie, 52, was rear-ended by a Ford Explorer traveling 40 mph, and she subsequently has had two operations on her neck vertebrae and one on her elbow, while continuing to undergo physical therapy. “She kept going into the kitchen at 5:30 a.m., six days a week, to prepare the day’s pastries,” Bert said, “but she had trouble lifting trays and doing her work. She’s extremely hands-on in the kitchen, but she realized she couldn’t keep doing it herself’it was too stressful, too painful, too exhausting’so we tried to find a new assistant. When that didn’t work out this summer, we said ‘Let’s stop while we’re still successful.’ You don’t make a fortune at this business anyway, so when the fun starts to go, it’s time to move on.” On the phone, with Bonnie in the background, Bert emphasized that “we’re not going to sell to somebody who wants to turn our place into a sushi bar or a Tai restaurant. We want a continuity’the same type of restaurant, the same quality. And we won’t sell to somebody who has never been in the restaurant business. It wouldn’t be ethical; they’d lose their money.” After selling their restaurant, the Yellens said they plan to build “a million-dollar house for $250,000” on a piece of property they own along the Gulf of California near La Paz. “Bonnie is going to build her own professional kitchen and maybe write a cookbook, and I hope to buy a sailboat,” Bert said. “Perhaps perhaps one day we’ll also open up a little pastry shop where people from the Palisades can catch up on their ‘ la Tarte favorites.”
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