vegansaurus!

» What the shit: Ike's Place is facing eviction??

This news hit me deep in the gut. I’d been hearing some rumblings that Ike was having trouble with one of the neighbors, but I didn’t know it was this bad. How bad is it? Real effing bad.

On Monday, [Ike] Shehadeh went to court to see if he could the eviction from landlord Denman Drobisch thrown out. The plea was denied. Shehadeh has a few more days to answer the complaint, which, unless Shehadeh decides to shut down Ike’s, will almost surely mean going to trial. The problem with that scenario, Shehadeh says, is that he doesn’t have the cash to pay the legal fees. “There’s not much more than a handful of dollars,” he says.

Here’s the problem. As any business owner will tell you, “why not move?”, well, it’s not that easy. Moving to a new location means getting the money together to start up what would essentially be a brand new business. And without his popular Castro location, there’s not enough money coming in to make it happen.

Ike’s Place in the Castro employs 40 people. Is the middle of the worst recession since ancient Rome really the time to be harassing Ike’s Place out of business? Do we really need to lose the only sandwich shop in SF that caters to vegans and vegetarians, barely a month after this city passed a Meatless Mondays resolution? If Gavin Newsom can personally intervene to keep Medjool open, maybe one of those “visionaries” on our board of supervisors can pay attention to this shit. Because this would be such an unbelievable blow to meatless dining in San Francisco that I don’t even know where to begin. If our city is serious about promoting vegan and vegetarian food options, then working out a compromise between Ike and his NIMBY neighbors would be a great place to start (Any vegan lawyers willing to get paid in sandwiches?).

P.S. to Ike’s NIMBY neighbors: If you don’t like living above a popular business, then don’t live in a commercial district. Go move to the ‘burbs (home prices are low!) and enjoy your cone of silence, just keep your g-d hands off my sandwich.