Toronto burger joint closes down suddenly after a rent dispute

Aunty Lucy’s is looking for a new home after a rent dispute forced the restaurant to abruptly shut down.

The popular burger joint had been operating out of the Duggan’s Brewery space in Parkdale since early June. According to the eatery’s Instagram post, Aunty Lucy’s landlord asked for a rent increase amounting to 10 times more than their original agreement.

“His reasoning being he didn’t expect us to do as well and now wants more money,” reads the post. Aunty Lucy’s served its final burgers out of the Duggan’s space yesterday, and will remain closed until they can find a new location.

 

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Hi all! It pains us to say this but the establishment we rented the kitchen of and are operating out of at 1346 Queen St W. has hit us with an extremely unmanageable rent increase of 10x from our previous agreement. His reasoning being he didn’t expect us to do as well and now wants more money. We tried to meet the gentleman at a reasonable price point after speaking to my advisors, and other business owners and mentors and they all gave me the same advice that the new price he was asking for is greedy and unacceptable. Even after we expressed that he still didn’t want to budge which is fine. He then told us we could take a week to transition out of the space as we find another temporary location for July, August, and potentially September at which point we hope to have found a permanent location. I was okay with this one week period to transition out and had no issues with it. Then I woke up this morning to a text that read; we had to stop business after close tomorrow ?! Which was a 360 from the slow transition and week move out that he gave us initially. He himself said he didn’t want to cut our legs out from under us and then proceeded to do just that. I say all that to say we will be open tomorrow for Canada day, and then are currently looking into our options to hopefully insure that there is no cut off in our service. Myself and the team will keep you updated, thank you all! ✨?? #auntylucysburgers

A post shared by Aunty Lucy’s (@auntylucysburgers) on Jun 30, 2020 at 11:56am PDT

Duggan’s Brewery responded with a post on its own social channels that tells a different side of the story.

According to the post, Duggan’s made an initial agreement with Aunty Lucy’s for a one-month pop-up in their space. Duggan’s writes that they had asked the burger joint to pay $600 a month to cover utilities, but otherwise offered them the space for free.

 

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Does anyone still care about truth?? Seems our friends at Aunt Lucy’s dont and have decided to invent their own. We invited them in at the heat of the epidemic. RENT FREE, please just cover the utilities they might generate, around, $600 a month we thought. We agreed to a one month pop up. A good deal, a steal, just ask anyone in the business. Turns out they were so successful they actually used around $2500 in utilities, garbage, lots of gas etc in costs for the month, that’s a lot of burgers. Didnt know them at the time but in these times you just take a chance and try and help out everyone. And we did. To date they have only paid $500 but we both have known about the extra costs for a while now. We have stayed open selling our locally made beers and ale throughout this, and many of you know its been pretty much a one man show. We didnt deliver, we make barley enough for Parkdale so we chose to stay very local. The end of the one month pop arrives and they thought it would be very profitable to stay here and continue to operate. RENT FREE. We are tenants and as such pay rent, substantial rent and business taxes for the privilege of operating a business in the city. We dont own the building, we are not independently wealthy. We were told by Aunt Lucy’s that that they wanted to stay but are not willing to pay ANY RENT (and it turns out any of the extra costs we incurred for them being here). Well, so who is going to help pay the landlord? Seems not Aunt Lucy’s. By not allowing them to remain here rent free for another month (and not allowing us, the tenant, access to our own kitchen), we where told by them ‘its not the climate to be strong arming a young black business…’ Really, we now have to subsidize their very profitable business because they are young and black?? Here at the brewery we dont see colour. Those of you that know us know this to true. It’s about paying your fair share, plain and simple.

A post shared by Duggan’s Brewery Parkdale (@duggansbreweryparkdale) on Jul 1, 2020 at 8:03am PDT

“The end of the one month pop[-up] arrives and they thought it would be very profitable to stay here and continue to operate. RENT FREE. We are tenants and as such pay rent, substantial rent and business taxes for the privilege of operating a business in the city. We don’t own the building, we are not independently wealthy,” reads the post from Duggan’s. The post also states that Aunty Lucy’s racked up closer to $2,500 in utility bills during their month in operation, and have so far only paid $500 to Duggan’s.

According to Aunty Lucy’s statement, they tried to meet Duggan’s at “a reasonable price point” but they were unable to reach an agreement. Aunty Lucy’s is a Black-owned business, adding a racial undertone to the dispute and sparking debate across the social media channels of both brands.

The owners of Duggan’s and Aunty Lucy’s did not respond to our requests for comments.

Aunty Lucy’s is now looking for a temporary location for July and August with the hopes of finding a permanent storefront by September.