Leasing Nightmares: The Dangers of an ‘Open Relationship’ with Your Landlord

Note:  Blackacre LLP is a boutique fixed fee real estate law firm with a restaurant leasing specialty.  From its experience serving as counsel to numerous restaurant clients, Blackacre’s attorneys know that a good lease is crucial to a restaurant’s success, while a bad lease can doom an otherwise successful restaurant to failure.  In the coming articles, Blackacre’s attorneys will write on how to prevent a restaurant lease from becoming the next “Leasing Nightmare."

The start of the landlord-tenant relationship is a very exciting time for both parties involved.  The tenant is excited to launch a restaurant in a new location and the landlord is thrilled have a new restaurant paying premium rent and attracting more customers to its shopping center.  At this stage of the relationship, many restaurant tenants do not even consider the possibility that their landlord may one day install a competitor in extremely close proximity, much less in the shopping center at all. Whether…