Le Cordon Rouge, a French bistro that opened early this spring at 334 Third St. downtown, is closed after just four months in operation.
Owner Rhonda Crosswhite—who previously operated a small bistro by the same name inside a now defunct antique store, The Courtyard, on Arnold Lane—says her downtown restaurant was just beginning to pick up steam and break even, when a dispute with the landlord over problems with the building forced her to closed down.
“We really had no choice,” she says. “We decided to cut our losses and move on.”
Crosswhite says the building had problems with its sewer system. She also says the back of the restaurant would flood after heavy rains because of insufficient drainage at a newly paved parking lot belonging to the building next door.
But property owner Kerry Denny says the plumbing was in fine working order until Crosswhite hired a plumber to install a new grease trap.
“She dug up, without a permit, holes in my concrete all around that bathroom, put in an underground grease trap, and I had to get a stop work order from the city to make her quit because she didn’t have a permit,” he says. “Then, once she moved in she said the plumbing didn’t work.”
Denny also says Crosswhite stopped paying rent in April. He says he offered to work with her and let her out of the lease but she stopped returning his calls and locked him out of the building’s first floor. He filed an eviction notice that was scheduled to be heard today in court.
Crosswhite says she is moving out of the building as quickly as possible but recent rains have hampered her progress. She is also mulling the restaurant’s future. Le Cordon Rouge was her first foray into the restaurant business, and while she is not prepared to give up on it yet, she doesn’t have any plans for a future location.
Denny says he will search for a new tenant for the building’s 2,000-square-foot, first floor space.
—Stephanie Riegel
