The landlords of a popular beer garden in Del Ray have filed a civil claim for eviction against their tenants in Alexandria’s General District Court.
The filing from Twenty-Third Street Corridor LLC cites that the owners of The Garden (1503 Mount Vernon Avenue) are paying the default rent and operating on a month-to-month lease. Before the filing, The Garden’s owners, Jeremy Barber and Justus Frank, filed a suit in the Alexandria Circuit Court against the landlord, who listed the property available for rent.
Stratis and Georgia Voustas are the principals of Twenty-Third Street Corridor LLC, and their son, Paul Voustas, manages the property. ALXnow has reached out to their attorney, Mark P. Friedlander, Jr., and all have declined to comment pending the outcome of the legal proceedings. Their preliminary hearing in General District Court will be heard at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 24.
Barber and Frank do not have a court date, although their attorney will request that both cases be heard simultaneously in the Alexandria Circuit Court, Barber said.
As previously reported, Barber and Frank say in their lawsuit that Twenty-Third Street Corridor will not honor the five-year renewal option on their lease, which expires in November. They contend that the relationship went sour after a deal to buy the 5,300-square-foot property fell through, and that the landlord spent the next seven months trying to evict them with default notices on property repair issues.
Barber said that since news broke of the impasse, business has surged at The Garden.
“I think the story broke and people had a lot of questions,” Barber said. “The support from the neighborhood has been overwhelming and so positive. Business has been affected in a positive way, because people are concerned that we’re not going to be there anymore. We are reassuring them that we are fighting to stay.”
