Longtime Palisadian Robert Klein, a vice president at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, confirmed to the Palisadian-Post on Tuesday that he and a group of investors are no longer interested in buying Mort’s Deli. “While we would like to do the right thing for the Palisades, by keeping Mort’s as it is, we’ve come to the conclusion that it is too big an investment for us at this time,” said Klein, who had been in negotiations for some time with both the landlord, Palisades Partners, and owner Bobbie Farberow. He also said that the plan was to keep the name and enhance the menu. While Klein’s group has bowed out, former Mayor Richard Riordan, who owns The Pantry downtown and has an interest in Gladstone’s restaurant on PCH at Sunset, is continuing his efforts to take over the popular deli on Swarthmore. “I am still trying to put all the pieces together to buy Mort’s,” Riordan said Tuesday. “I’m working with both the landlord and Bobbie.” Riordan lives in Brentwood and has been a regular customer at Mort’s for years. On Tuesday, Farberow said that while she had no comment on lease negotiations’which have been going on for over a year’she said there was no truth to the latest rumor that her employees had been encouraged to find other work as of September. “That is simply not true,” she told the Post. “There have been so many rumors lately. One of them even has me getting married. To whom? A ghost?” Farberow ran the deli with her husband, Mort, from 1974 until his death in 2002. Since then, she has been doing all the ordering for the restaurant, overseeing her 45 employees, and working the cash register several days a week’between trips to Hawaii to visit her son Stuart and his family, including three grandchildren. Is Farberow ready to retire? How soon does she plan to sell? “No comment,” is all she will say. Although Farberow is not prepared to sign the new lease recently offered to her by Palisades Partners, a close friend said she is still trying to negotiate in good faith.
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