Boston Market has been ordered to pay nearly $600,000 to the landlord at its longtime headquarters in Golden after defaulting on its lease and ignoring a lawsuit.
On Thursday, Judge Meegan Miloud in Golden ordered the fast-casual restaurant chain to pay $589,538 in back rent and fees to Tebo Properties in Boulder, which owns the building at 14103 Denver West Parkway that Boston Market has made its headquarters since 1996.
Court documents that BusinessDen obtained in January show Boston Market shrank its footprint there from 63,000 to 27,655 square feet in 2019 but still struggled to pay its monthly rent of $58,000 during the pandemic. Tebo allowed it to defer payments until 2021 but the debt only piled higher and Tebo sued Boston Market at the start of 2023 to collect.
Boston Market was served the lawsuit Jan. 18 but never responded in court, so Tebo asked Miloud to issue a default judgment against the company. She did so Thursday.
In February, Tebo sued Boston Market for a second time, accusing it of unlawfully occupying 14103 Denver West Parkway. Boston Market ignored that lawsuit as well, so a judge ordered the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office to remove Boston Market from the property.
All told, Boston Market was sued seven times in Jefferson County courts during the first four months of this year and responded to none of those lawsuits in court.
A signage maker obtained a $67,082 judgment against it May 2 and a company called 1-800-GOT-JUNK is trying to garnish a Boston Market bank account after winning a $13,129 judgment against it last month. Meanwhile, a Boston Market restaurant at 3820 Wadsworth Blvd. in Wheat Ridge was evicted March 1 for not paying $14,240 in rent.
Requests for comment from spokespeople for Boston Market and its parent company, Pandya Brands, were not answered this week. Neither were requests sent to Pandya’s lawyers, Boston Market’s lawyers, and Pandya Brands CEO Jignesh “Jay” Pandya.
Pandya, of Pennsylvania, bought Boston Market and its 283 restaurants from a private equity firm in early 2020. Later that year, he bought the Corner Bakery Cafe chain. There are four Boston Market locations and five Corner Bakery Cafes in Colorado.
This story was reported by our partner BusinessDen.
