Providence pizza restaurant fights eviction after 10 years on the East Side
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — A restaurant that has been in the Mount Hope neighborhood of Providence for the last ten years is being evicted.
Piemonte Pizza and Grille on Doyle Avenue is a staple on the East Side of Providence, serving up hot pizza and Kurdish-inspired food.
But now the owner, John Oner, and his family are fighting eviction.
“We have been here the past ten years,” Oner said. “We have good relationship, we pay our rent on time, we live in the neighborhood. We’re very connected to the neighborhood.”
Oner said he was not aware he had to notify the landlords that he wanted to renew 90 days prior to the current lease ending.
He got an eviction notice a few months back, but thought he had a fifteen-year lease.
“We really didn’t know if there was words on the lease,” Oner said. “I never read it, I never seen it. We thought we had 15 years straight lease, which is what we requested, and he drew us a 15 years lease, split five and five.”
Landlords Andy Marr and Patrick Merner said it was a five-year lease, with the opportunity to renew every five years.
After ten years of working with Oner, they said they did not want him as a tenant anymore and decided not to renew Piemonte’s lease.
Meanwhile, Oner said he has put thousands of dollars into the place and is not ready to give it up just yet.
“2014, when we walked in here, me and my wife, my son came to school and me and my wife came here,” Oner recounted. “We bought out the previous owner and we spent thousands and thousands of dollars, all our savings. We remodeled this place inside out.”
Oner, Marr and Merner will now fight it out in eviction court this Friday.
In the last three weeks, an online petition to keep Piemonte open, created by the Mount Hope community, has gained support with over 1,200 signatures.
“We so appreciate our customers and neighbors, whatever happens, our heart is with them,” Oner said. “And every time we made a warm pizza here we did it with our hearts.”
