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In the latest legal drama for Dean & DeLuca, the president’s company has filed suit against it, claiming the luxury grocer owes its Wall Street landlord millions in unpaid rent.
The Trump Organization is suing the company for defaulting on a lease at 40 Wall St., Crain’s New York Business reports. The lawsuit — filed four months ago in Manhattan federal court — seeks to recover more than $16M. Dean & DeLuca has not yet responded to the filing. The company signed up to pay $1.4M each year for the 40 Wall St. space in 2015, but the Trump Organization claims it stopped paying in 2017.
“They’ve gone silent,” Jeffrey Goldman, an attorney for the Trump Organization entity known as 40 Wall Street LLC, told Crain's. “We’ll be seeking monetary damages.”
It is just one of a slew of problems the company is facing. It has been battling lawsuits from suppliers that claim they haven’t been paid. Last year, one New York City bakery claimed it was owed $86K for cookies sold to the store for which it was never paid, and a patisserie claimed it was owed $70K.
Last month, Dean & DeLuca closed its flagship store in SoHo, after closing all its other locations over a period of months, The New York Times reported, though it was not clear if the closure is permanent.
Dean & DeLuca’s owner, Thai real estate tycoon Sorapoj Techakraisri through his Pace Development Corp., paid $140M for the gourmet food chain back in 2014. At the time, the company said it would expand by hundreds of stores within two years. Plans to open in London were killed, and plans for a new store in Chevy Chase, Maryland, were also put on ice last year. Pace last month defaulted on an $88M loan, per Bloomberg.
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