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Flat tire on Salvation Mountain

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Gnarly Shame


Like many towns in America, the Main St. I work on is fighting for its collective life. One of the freshest things to happen to Fallbrook in the last year is the opening of a small wine bar called the Gnarly Vine. The Gnarly Vine is a great place to decompress in the afternoon with a nice reasonably priced glass of wine. Very pleasantly appointed and a civilized experience in a sea of barbarity. Good cheeses, spanish olives, serrano, all very wonderful. Nice jazz and blues collection.

Unfortunately it looks like the place might be on its last legs. Yesterday the owners were served a termination of lease notice by their nasty, manipulative, harpy of a landlord, who decided that she wanted the place for her own twisted pursuits. She wanted them to move to a different location not covered by their liquor license. They refused. It is a real tragedy because they have invested a fortune of their own money in the place, which was a dump when they moved in and I am told they have always met their financial obligations.

I have had bad history with the landlord myself, history that I don't need to go into. I will just say one thing. When I bought my building I spent $20,000.00 to purchase parking spaces in the lot near the library so that my customers would have a place to park. This woman has spent the last forty years poaching parking spaces, being too cheap to ever pony up her contribution.

I hope that John and Lura can find a new place although it is very difficult to find restaurant space in Fallbrook at the present time.

It hurts because their place was really nice and just coming into its own. It really was starting to help us downtown. May a house fall on a certain so and so's legs.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Whats in a Name Dept.???
For starters if the Gnarly Vine has to move perhaps they re-think the name and that depressing logo.

hobo_beans said...

The name's fine. What do you want them to call it, the SmileyFace White Wine Spritzer Club?

Anonymous said...

Returning to your roots with a classy dream can have it's disappointments....Time for those with character to step up to the plate and outnumber the bad guys.
We love you, John and Lura!!!!!

Anonymous said...

When you go into a contract with a person to lease/rent their property (your plans for continued use included)should have some consideration on the part of the landlord. Ah, it is normally said that with age comes wisdom...well a land-lady??? that has been around for that many years should be more considerate...Give em heck John & Lura, you're the greatest

grumpy said...

had a great glass of zinfandel there recently but it took them a very long time to bring us a simple plate of tapas...

Blue Heron said...

Too bad they won't have time to work on that...

Anonymous said...

I hope the Gnarly Landlord is happy with her actions... sounds like she has a long history of not playing fair. Maybe she should turn her ass-ets over to a property manager and find something productive to do (or relax for a few years). Good luck, John & Lura!

Anonymous said...

Amazing. Somehow I think that the groundswell of support for Lura and John will prevent those who believe in fair play from frequenting whatever this space becomes.

Personally, I'll be planning to openly picket the new establishment on principal. Those who may consider this as their wonderfully refurbished new locale may want to reconsider.

I'll be there, daily!

Anonymous said...

I like the logo and name.
I too have heard nasty things about the landlord. There appears to be a lot of space available in Fallbrook these days so I hope they find someplace lovely to move and stay in the community.