SAN MATEO — A Poplar Creek Golf Course restauranter sued town of San Mateo this week, claiming metropolis officers destroyed her thriving enterprise by leasing a leaky and moldy constructing to her, then failing to do a lot about it regardless of her pleas for assist.
Alicia Petrakis — who ran the Par 3 restaurant and Villa Vista banquet corridor on the city-owned golf course — claimed town knew for years that the buildings she leased have been vulnerable to flooding, leaks and sewage points. Nonetheless, she stated, metropolis officers didn’t correctly warn her about it, or do a lot to repair these issues after she repeatedly aired her considerations.
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The difficulty got here to a head on Oct. 11, 2024, when metropolis officers abruptly red-tagged the constructing throughout the dinner rush and ordered cooks to cease cooking. Patrons needed to shortly end consuming, the go well with says.
The enterprise by no means re-opened, inflicting greater than 61 individuals to lose their jobs, in keeping with the lawsuit.
To Petrakis, it was “completely avoidable.”
“It’s unhappy, it’s heartbreaking,” Petrakis instructed this information group. “It’s a 30-year profession in hospitality and dealing in my group that had a tough cease. That’s what makes it so laborious, is that it was utterly pointless that we’re all going by means of this.”
In a press release, metropolis spokesperson Jeanne Sullivan Billeci stated town “respectfully declines to comment, as this is a pending litigation matter, and the city has not yet been formally served.”
“While we are unable to comment on the specifics at this time, we will respond appropriately through the legal process,” Sullivan Billeci stated.
Petrakis opened Par 3 and the Villa Vista banquet corridor in June 2019, after profitable a metropolis utility course of for the house. Earlier than then, she had been a mainstay within the San Mateo eatery scene, having owned Three Craft Kitchen and Restaurant — beforehand generally known as Astaria — for a number of years, in addition to a catering enterprise earlier than that.
Previous to signing her seven-year lease, in keeping with the go well with, metropolis officers instructed Petrakis that the clubhouse had been “completely rebuilt in 2000,” and that roof leaks that had induced staining on the constructing’s ceiling tiles had been mounted.
Regardless of her marketing strategy working to “perfection,” she observed an rising cascade of issues with the property.
Workers discovered water pooling within the restaurant and banquet room and did little — if something — to repair it.
In early 2024, town instructed Petrakis that it wanted to shut the restaurant for a month to conduct repairs. It provided her $300,000 to cowl her losses throughout that stretch, and the 2 sides settled on a November 2024 monthlong closure, the lawsuit claimed.
But Petrakis stated town later appeared to develop reluctant on paying these prices, whereas additionally allegedly suggesting repairs would take half so long as initially thought. Reasonably than handle the issues, the lawsuit stated, metropolis officers criticized her payroll and administration construction.
By Might 2024, metropolis officers notified Petrakis that her restaurant can be chargeable for $350,000 in water repairs, “despite not knowing where the water was coming from,” the lawsuit stated. Petrakis countered that town had lengthy deferred upkeep on the constructing, and her lawsuit claimed the water points predated her arrival.
Petrakis stated she returned from a trip in summer season 2024 to search out that metropolis employees had created a gap inside one restaurant wall, which revealed mildew. But, she stated, town did little to cowl it up. She stated she later commissioned her personal mildew testing in September 2024, which really useful skilled remediation.
Early the next month, metropolis officers really useful air high quality assessments at Par 3, which Petrakis allowed, the lawsuit stated. At 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 11, metropolis officers red-tagged the constructing and stated individuals couldn’t safely be inside. The choice led to a scene of mass confusion, Petrakis stated, throughout which the restaurant was instructed to abruptly finish dinner service.
“I feel my coronary heart stopped — I simply couldn’t imagine what I used to be listening to,” Petrakis stated.
She stated a 275-person memorial service deliberate for the following day needed to be moved in a single day to a brand new location. Greater than 100 extra occasions had already been booked at Par 3 and Villa Villa over the following a number of months — all of which needed to be canceled, the lawsuit claimed. Petrakis stated she invested a minimal of $500,000 into the property to rework it into Par 3, and misplaced out on a minimum of a quarter-million {dollars} in income from occasions that had already been booked by means of the tip of 2024.
“It wasn’t just a restaurant. We were a community hub, a place where people celebrated life. And it took me five-plus years to build that 61-person team into the team they were when the restaurant closed. The amount of effort that goes into that is excruciating,” Petrakis stated. “It’s really difficult to even imagine how to recreate what we had again.”
