The owners of Beer Me in Flowery Branch recently commented on the termination of their lease and accusations of unpaid rent from the owner of the building.
Marc Stampfli and John Fincher said they have tried to negotiate to stay in the building.
“[Artie Ching] came to us a year ago with this money we may or may not have owed him. John was the one that spoke to him the most, just to try to negotiate and try to come to some terms. He was never really ever willing to agree to anything with us,” Stampfli said. “We basically were going to give him whatever he wanted, just because we wanted to stay around. That's all that mattered to us at that point. We really don't care about this battle anymore. Let's just figure out how to stay around. And the best he could do was another six months but wouldn't sign a lease agreement.”
Stampfli and Fincher claim they offered to buy the property from Ching but he said no. Stampfli responded to Artie Ching’s claim of over $30,000 in unpaid rent.
“When we first opened, Karen Ching forgave us for our rent for a certain amount of time. He's adding that kind of stuff in those numbers. For COVID, we were forgiven from our landlord for a certain amount of rent,” Stampfli said. “I don't know the math off the top of my head. We're like, we'll just pay you back. We're just giving you what you want so we can get you off our back. In our eyes, there's no validity to it because it was all done by our landlord in the past.”
The owners thanked the public for their support but said they expect to close at the end of April.
“The support has been amazing,” Stampfli said. “I don't expect anything. I expect April 30 to be our last day having the keys to this building. Whether we move that just is kind of up to the city and what becomes available. There's not really anything available that suits our needs.”
Beer Me is open Monday-Thursday from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. and Fridays from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. They are open on Saturday from 12 p.m. to 11 p.m. and Sundays from 12:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.
April 26 or 27 are expected to be the business' last day of operation.
