LoHi

A new LoHi restaurant is feeling the heat from one of the city’s most prominent restaurateurs. My Neighbor Felix, the casual Mexican restaurant at 1801 Central St., sued its former executive general manager Kasie Curiel and her business Alma Fonda Fina on March 11 and requested a temporary restraining order. If approved, the restraining order would close Alma Fonda Fina for an undetermined period of time. A hearing will be held this Friday. Curiel worked at My Neighbor Felix for three years before she was terminated in…

Despite its penchant for raw food in the kitchen, Sushi Ronin is burning money in the courtroom. The LoHi sushi joint filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month, nearly three years into a nasty legal battle between the business’ majority owner and initial investor, where each alleges misconduct and blames the other for the restaurant’s failure to ever turn a profit. “At this point, this lawsuit is just very, very vindictive,” said Alex Gurevich, Sushi Ronin’s majority owner. Chapter 11 bankruptcies are meant to…

The company behind a popular restaurant in LoHi is suing what it calls a new “knock-off restaurant in the neighborhood” and demanding the newcomer change its name. Edible Beats, an employee-owned restaurant group, runs Root Down in LoHi, Vital Root in Berkeley and four other locations. It takes issue with Rooted, a restaurant that opened in May at 3940 W. 32nd Ave. in the West Highland neighborhood. “Rooted…intentionally and blatantly copies the Root Down and Vital Root restaurant concepts and, incredibly, opened its…

Tony P’s is out and Juan P is in. Denver restaurateur Juan Padro is getting ready to open a new restaurant in the former Tony P’s spot at 2400 W. 32nd Ave. in LoHi this year. “I think it’s arguably the best corner in the city,” Padro said. Tony Pasquini told BusinessDen in January that he’s moving his pizzeria after 15 years on the same corner into a smaller space more suited for takeout, just two blocks south at 3000 Zuni St. Padro purchased the remaining five-year lease from Pasquini last month for the…

Nearly a year after closing, El Chingon is coming back better and bigger than ever. Lorenzo Nunez Jr. closed the Mexican restaurant’s location in a converted bungalow at 4326 N. Tennyson St. in Berkeley in October last year. He said the business had outgrown the 38-seat space after eight years. Now, he’s getting ready to reopen El Chingon in a larger 70-seat location with a 50-seat patio at 1691 Central St. in LoHi in mid-August. The location was previously home to Northside Eatery + Market, which closed in December last…

LoHi SteakBar no longer has a stake in the restaurant game. The steakhouse at 3200 Tejon St., along with its coffee shop next door, LoHi Local, will permanently close the doors on June 15, according to managing partner Joe Pettenger. Both the businesses’ leases are up at the end of June, and Pettenger said he and his four other partners decided it was time to wrap things up. “With all of the challenges that have occurred over the last couple of years, obviously COVID, staffing, raising rents, maintenance on certain…

After more than a decade, Ale House at Amato’s has tapped out. The LoHi restaurant and bar at 250116th St. closed on April 24, according to Alex Bunn, who works in marketing for owner Breckenridge-Wynkoop. Bunn said in an email that the company “decided to temporarily close Ale House at Amato’s so that we could pause and evaluate our options.” But the 8,228-square-foot space, which Breckenridge-Wynkoop does not own, is being marketed for lease on LoopNet. “The pandemic has been challenging for almost all restaurants,”…