The owner of a Moroccan restaurant is calling attention to his plight after his landlord decided to more than double the rent of his Burlington eatery.
Little Morocco Cafe, a family-owned restaurant on North Winooski Avenue, is facing a rent hike from $2,000 to $5,000 for a new lease, according to owner Ali Amrani.
“Our landlord wants to raise our rent 150% for the new lease which we absolutely can not afford so we will be forced to close our restaurant doors by next July 31st,” Amrani said in an email.
The property is owned by Hinsdale Properties, which has offices in the same building and has been operating in Vermont for more than six decades.
Property manager Jacob Hinsdale confirmed that the restaurant has a five-year lease that ends July 31 and that the rent would increase to $5,000 if Amrani wants to continue to use the 1,600-square-foot space. The market rate is closer to $2,000, Hinsdale said.
But it’s not about the money, according to Hinsdale. It’s about the relationship. He alleges poor communications, health code violations and a general lack of respect from Amrani.
“He’s just been really rude, unbelievably hard to work with and unresponsive,” Hinsdale said. “It’s frustrating that I’m being made to look like the bad guy when I’m basically trying to get a good tenant.”
Hinsdale said he has faced repeated problems of grease overflowing or being disposed of improperly and discharging into the basement, which he said he has had to fix at his own cost. Hinsdale said he has had many conversations with Amrani about it.
The state health department gives the restaurant a score of 86 (a passing score is 70). There were five violations recorded in November 2021, according to the most recent inspection report, ranging from poorly labeled food containers to hood filters in need of cleaning.
Though Amrani has suggested he wants to keep the cafe open, he has listed the business for sale as “a turn-key restaurant opportunity” with an asking price of $125,000. Hinsdale said his tenant is not being upfront about his plans to sell and is instead using the rent hike to vilify him.
“What options did he leave when he told me that he didn’t want to rent his property (to) the likes of me? So yes, we did list it but we did it after September 21, 2022 when he made that racist statement,” Amrani said via email. (A statement on the cafe’s website alleges that Hinsdale said “he did not want the ‘likes of us’ renting his property.” According to Hinsdale, Amrani has misrepresented his remarks.)
Meanwhile, Hinsdale appears to have a potential new tenant. A hearing on a proposed zoning change to turn the space into a bar is scheduled for Tuesday, according to the city’s Development Review Board meeting agenda. The applicant is Sam Nelis, the beverage director of Barr Hill Gin.
Nelis said in an email Monday that he visited Little Morocco Cafe when he saw it was up for sale last year and decided to explore what was possible under city zoning regulations.
He is seeking to open a European-style bar, cafe and market with live entertainment called Specs in September. Documents submitted to the review board outline Nelis’ plans to renovate the North Winooski space.
“I’ve been exploring different locations to see what is possible for my business idea. I have no commitments to Hinsdale Properties or anyone else at this time,” he said.
Nelis added that he recently learned about the conflict and is dismayed.
“It is a broken real estate system where there is an imbalance of power. This situation was unknown to me and it was never my intention to cause any tension or harm,” he said.
Little Morocco Cafe’s owner has seized on other power dynamics, characterizing Hinsdale in the statement on the website as a “powerful and highly influential landlord.” Hinsdale’s family has been a major landowner in the Burlington area for decades and he is married to state Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden Southeast, who chairs the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs.
The cafe, which opened in December 2018, is a BIPOC-owned business that serves dishes ranging from pastilla and couscous to tagine and chakchouka.
The restaurant provided free meals for vulnerable people during the pandemic through the state’s Everyone Eats program, Amrani said. Now, the owner is asking for help in the form of financial donations and free legal assistance.
“They are stealing our family’s livelihood. Please help us because we have no means to fight this,” according to the statement. “We are now asking all of you to come help us keep our minority small family business alive.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated Sam Nelis’ status at Barr Hill Gin.
