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- Past and future rent payments to a commercial kitchen in North Charleston under a 10-year lease have resulted in a lawsuit seeking damages in excess of $2 million.
- KTCHeN closed this summer after the owners said they were threatened with eviction.
- The store, which opened in 2016, signed a new ten-year lease in February 2024.
A lawsuit against the owners of a commercial kitchen in North Charleston is seeking payment of four months’ rent and the remainder of a ten-year lease, The Post and Courier newspaper reported.
With interest and fees, the claim against Keila Viera and Christopher Garate amounts to $2.25 million.
Viera and Garate closed KTCHeN, 6185 Rivers Ave., this summer. They gave the 30 mobile food service operators that used the facility three weeks to find new locations.
KTCHeN was located in the Aviation Square Shopping Center, the newspaper reported. The center is owned by Benderson Development, and Southeast Partners LLC is listed as the managing member on the lease. Southeast Partners co-founder Rob Wilson signed the lease on behalf of the company.
The plaintiffs declined to comment.
According to The Post and Courier, Viera and Garate did not respond to multiple requests for comment, but in a July email to the newspaper, they said they had no choice but to close KTCHeN after their landlord asked them to move out under threat of eviction.
