According to court documents, Shari’s Restaurants, the well-known family-style café company in the Pacific Northwest that collapsed this fall, owes landlords around the state millions of dollars.
In October, the company abruptly liquidated all of its Oregon stores due to unpaid payments and growing financial difficulties.
Longtime patron Marianne Doyle remarked, “It was a great place to stop and get a good warm meal and some pie.”
Shari’s has now been sued by about 15 different landlord businesses in the state for not paying rent prior to the company closing.
According to the lawsuits, Shari’s is owed about $4 million in past-due rent, late penalties, and future rent payments that were agreed upon in the leases.
“It was just dragged out to the very end,” Deb Melina in a previous interview stated. “I mean, you could read the writing on the wall, we knew something was coming.”
The complaints filed by landlords are connected to Shari’s stores at various sites around the state, ranging from Beaverton to Corvallis, Keizer, Bend, Oregon City, and a great number of other locales.
Shari’s was declared to be in default by a judge in Multnomah County for nonpayment of rent at a Troutdale site, which was $45,240 overdue.
Based on the lease agreement of the corporation, the judge stated that Shari’s is also responsible for future rent payments of $2.22 million through the year 2036.
In a letter, the landlord of a Shari’s restaurant in Grants Pass stated that the restaurant chain had stopped making payments in June, and that they had accumulated three months’ worth of rent that had not been paid in the months that followed.
The landlord of a Shari’s restaurant in Springfield, Oregon, attached a photo of the restaurant’s closure notice that was displayed on its doors.
The letter stated that the landlord is terminating the lease and reentering the building, but Shari’s is still accountable for its payments.
It is claimed by the majority of landlords that Shari’s stopped paying rent at its locations this summer, resulting in tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid rent at those sites.
This is despite the fact that unpaid rent accounts for the majority of the almost $4 million in overdue payments that are believed to have been incurred through the litigation.
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Furthermore, as demonstrated by the organization’s history of default judgments, it is possible that the business may be unable to defend itself in court. Miller Nash, a law company, had filed a lawsuit against Shari’s in October, saying that Shari’s had failed to pay them around $390,000 for the legal work that they had done.
As a result of Shari’s failure to react, the judge made a decision that was favorable to the company.