ValleyWire: Bistro Garden May Lose Its Lease

Maybe you haven't been to the Bistro Garden since your cousin's bar mitzvah in 1997, but the Daily News reports that the restaurant, anchoring the corner of Ventura and Coldwater Canyon boulevards since 1990, may lose its lease. The restaurant's publicist says the property management company wants to raise the rents for all the tenants in that strip mall, and those that can't pay must go. Gardens' owners Carolyn and Greg Pappas pay $20,000 a month on their lease, and they filed for Chapter 11 on July 2 to freeze any legal action against them and the restaurant. Neither the Pappasses, their lawyer nor Combined Properties will comment on the situation, but general manager Maurice Cohen says the restaurant is holding its own during these bead economic times: "Business has gone down about 10 percent, but thank God we still have the weddings and the anniversary parties." It's a little surprising any restaurant that serves "Continental cuisine" still gets that much business, but this isn't the way it should go down. Lease wars like this are definitely thinning the herd these days.
· Future of Bistro Garden threatened in lease dispute [LADN]