The owners of Bocage Village Shopping Center have terminated Dearman’s lease, one week after an overnight fire destroyed the popular diner. Dearman’s owner David Van Gelder says he received a letter March 6 from shopping center manager Mitch Richardson informing him of the decision.
“We are shocked and devastated by the fire,” Van Gelder says. “Now to find out our lease has been terminated after the fire is astonishing.”
The termination is based on a clause in Dearman’s lease agreement that allows the shopping center to cancel the lease in the event of a major fire, according to Richardson.
“The landlord does have that option,” Richardson says. “So at this point we went on to exercise that option.”
But even before the fire, Dearman’s future at Bocage Village was questionable. Last fall, Richardson sent a letter to Van Gelder informing him the lease was set to expire in June. Van Gelder says he spent weeks making minor improvements to the restaurant, including new paint and wainscoting, and was under the impression the lease would be extended.
Richardson says he can’t say if the lease would have been extended had the fire not occurred, adding, “I don’t know, I didn’t get that far.” But he says, “This is something we have all been talking about since October.”
Richardson says no talks have taken place with any other potential tenants about moving into the 3,000-square-foot space. But he anticipates there will be some pushback from loyal patrons of the restaurant, which had been open since 2007 and was a reincarnation of the original Dearman’s Soda Shop.
“Unfortunately, people are going to talk, people are going to get out and have a lot of discussion about it,” he says. “But when the time is right there will be an announcement made as to what we intend to have reappear there.”
In the meantime, Van Gelder says he is trying to pick up the pieces and figure out where to go from here. It’s too soon to say whether he’ll try to reopen at another location in the future. For now, he’s concerned about his employees and his customers.
“We are a family and we are so concerned about our faithful loyal employees and what becomes of them,” he says. “We have a loyal customer base that includes friends. It’s sad to lose a 50-year-old business that brought such value to customers.”
—Stephanie Riegel
