The owners of The Garden (1503 Mount Vernon Avenue) in Del Ray have filed a lawsuit in the Alexandria Circuit Court against their landlord, who recently listed the property available for rent on Labor Day, Sept. 1.
The Garden owners Jeremy Barber and Justus Frank say in their lawsuit that their landlord, Twenty-Third Street Corridor LLC, will not honor the five-year renewal option on their lease, which expires in November. In a recent interview with ALXnow, the pair contend that after a deal fell through to buy the 5,300-square-foot property, the landlord spent the next seven months trying to evict them with default notices on property repair issues.
The Garden was open Friday (Aug. 29) and serving guests when ALXnow interviewed Barber and Frank. The owners say they’re planning on being open through Labor Day weekend, and at noon on Labor Day — Monday (Sept. 1). They also expect to receive an eviction notice that day.
“Until there’s somebody that says that we are not allowed to be here that’s higher up, it’s business as usual,” Barber said. “They’ve been trying to default us forever.”
The Garden opened in January 2019, and has become a popular watering hole and outdoor restaurant in Del Ray. Barber and Frank also own Mill Street Draft Garden in Occoquan, and employ about 30 people between the two businesses.
The Lawsuit
The 11-page complaint states that Barber and Frank renovated the property, which was previously in “extremely poor” condition. It was previously home to Greenstreet Gardens, which closed in 2018. The property had a non-working stone fountain that’s still there, and a garden center building, which has been completely replaced.
On April 22, 2025, Barber and Frank sent their landlord a letter exercising their option to renew their lease for an additional five years. According to the complaint, the following day, April 23, the landlord sent a note alleging that the tenants “would have to ‘restore” the stone fountain, and to complete requested repairs.
“The Landlord thereafter sent a letter to Tenant on May 14, 2025 alleging that Tenant’s exercise of the option was invalid,” according to the complaint. “Tenant seeks a Court order requiring Landlord to cease and desist in attempting to evict Tenant on the basis of the default notices sent by Landlord to-date.”
Barber and Frank are also asking for “at least $6,000 in rent overpaid by Tenant to Landlord, and for a Court order requiring Landlord to cease and desist in attempting to evict Tenant, and for such other and further relief as this Court may deem appropriate,” according to the complaint.
Stratis and Georgia Voustas are the principals of Twenty-Third Street Corridor LLC, and the property is being managed by their son, Paul Voustas. ALXnow has also reached out to their attorney, Mark P. Friedlander, Jr.
“They know what it takes to stay, so they just gotta do what it takes to say,” Stratis Voustas told ALXnow. “They defaulted on the lease. They’ve already defaulted. They’re paying the default rent. They’ve agreed to pay the default rent. I mean, they defaulted the lease.”
Voustas said that the property is now on the market for rent, and that whether the property can be leased during a lawsuit is “up to the attorneys.”
“Somebody wants it, they can have it,” Voustas said, and then referred ALXnow to his wife, Georgia Voustas, who declined to comment.
Barber and Frank say they had a positive relationship with their landlord for years, up until last year when Twenty-Third Street Corridor tried to sell them the property for $1.8 million. The lot was last assessed at $573,000 in value by the city in January, according to property records. The land is worth $445,452 and the building is valued at $127,186.
“We would have had the land, but the business would have struggled,” Barber said. “When we’re offering $10 sandwiches at that point, when you’re tripling your rent, you’re not offering $10 sandwiches. Then our whole business model changes, and maybe we aren’t as busy as we used to be. So, we respectively declined the offer to them and said, ‘I’m really sorry. It’s not a good business decision for us. We’d like to just continue and worry about our five year extension that we have.'”
Frank said that their base rent for their extension should continue to be $5,625 per month, but that Twenty-Third Street Corridor LLC sent back a revised lease with a base rent of $10,000 per month, and climbing to $15,000 by the end of that five year extension.
“They would essentially be tripling our rent for the five year total in order for us to bring the property up to a high enough value for them,” Barber said. “We had the five-year option we had already set up saying we’d like to renew this… It was our option to take, so we did exercise that, however we were still willing to negotiate with them at a higher rate, but they weren’t willing to come down to anything that was reasonable.”
Barber and Frank said they’ve had attorney Heather R. Steele on retainer since January. If they’re allowed to stay for five years, though, Barber and Frank acknowledge that their days at 1503 Mount Vernon Avenue are still numbered. The business will likely have to move, unless a deal can be struck to buy the property.
“If we win our case, then we still will have the right of first refusal,” Frank said. “If they do try to sell it, they still have to give us a whack at it.”
Frank said that he and Barber have opened and closed restaurants, changed concepts and have figured out survivability in an expensive area.
“We’re gonna bet on ourselves and hope that that’s the right move for our staff, and then hopefully it will end up being the right move for ourselves,” Frank said.
