M3 restaurant closed due to seizure

[ron_newman]

M3 restaurant, at Highland Ave and Cutter Ave, has big orange SEIZED signs plastered all over the doors and windows.

A notice left at the front door says that the Constable's Office seized the restaurant on behalf of landlord Christos Poutahidis, because the restaurant owes the landlord $25,238.

Comments

[theloriest.livejournal.com]

Shit! I was just there on Monday. It was my favorite restaurant in the immediate area. :(

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

Ugh, that is SO sad.

[nonelvis]

So much for the Amazon Local food voucher I had with them, I guess!

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

+1. If the restaurant closes, maybe Amazon will give us credit for another voucher?

[nonelvis]

That would be nice. I'll have to look into that when I get back from vacation.

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

If you think about it, let me know here? If I manage to do so, I'll get back, too.

[nonelvis]

Will do!

[nonelvis]

Just got back from vacation, and Amazon says that they'll refund vouchers for closed businesses.

ETA: I emailed Amazon last night asking for a refund, and it had processed by this morning! Hope getting a refund goes as smoothly for you, too.

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

Ooh! Thanks so much! My roommate wrote them and they wrote back saying they'd refunded him. He does not recall how he paid, though, so he's got to check his band records :/ (I'm sure it's in).

[geekpixie.livejournal.com]

I've had amazon refund me for unused vouchers, so I assume you'd get credit back!

[josephineave.livejournal.com]

Vouchers are pretty much gift certificates, at least for the amount paid out of pocket. Amazon would owe you that, at a minimum.

[madrigal.livejournal.com]

nooooo!

[wardv.livejournal.com]

Ah. So that is what the locksmith was doing there around 5:30pm last night -- changing the locks. It was decidedly not cool that he decided he could just park in the bus stop, though.

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

Well, damn. I was really hoping to try that place. :(

[vanguardcdk.livejournal.com]

Just when it seemed like a restaurant could finally succeed in that location...

[sovay]

A notice left at the front door says that the Constable's Office seized the restaurant on behalf of landlord Christos Poutahidis, because the restaurant owes the landlord $25,238.

derspatchel and I ate there the first week they opened—they were one of our regular restaurants. We'd been worrying about them for a while, but this is not a reassuring answer to our questions!

[billharnois.livejournal.com]

I've been to M3 three times and it was just awful food every time. I do not understand how this place is liked by so many.

[max-rebo2.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I tried them twice and the food was lousy.

[gruene.livejournal.com]

Huh. It seemed like they were always packed. I'm surprised they had so much debt.

Unless there's more to the story.

[macthud]

There's always more to the story...

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

That name rings a bell as someone connected to the monstrosity at Summer and Cutter. Is it terrible of me to assume that he must be at least in part in the wrong because of that?

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

No, I think we heard back when out of the blue was there that the guy was a pretty exacting landlord. I thought the same.

[ron_newman]

Same guy, yes.

Tonight there's also a notice on the door from NStar, saying that they came to shut off the electricity. But the electricity is still on, so I don't know what that's all about.

[teko.livejournal.com]

Yes, he's the notorious landlord who had a carved plaque declaring that section of the square to be named after himself.

Given the number of long-standing vacancies in his buildings, I'm guessing his rents aren't very affordable.

that guy...

[rachelmello.livejournal.com]

I really wish our tax structure was such that every fiscal quarter that a property sat empty, the landlord had to pay a higher tax rate, expressed as a percentage of asking price for rent. One fiscal quarter empty, pay 25% of the asking price, two f-quarters empty, pay 50%, up to 100% every quarter until the place is rented, and to be adjusted downward if the rent is lowered.

Right now this guy buys up property all over town and doesn't care when some of them sit empty because he writes it off as a deduction against the rest of his properties. He'll make a ton of money off the residential units he's building on my street, jack the rent on his commercial properties through the roof, and then deduct those "losses" from his profits for tax purposes. It hurts our city in so many ways, and the city really has to enact some progressive tax structures to deal with this predatory behavior.

Re: that guy...

[ron_newman]

What else does he own in Somerville, besides the M3-Kickass block and the big new building next to Rosebud?

RE: Re: that guy...

[vonelftinhaus.livejournal.com]

oh I am probably missing some properties but he owns the 2 family (maybe 3) on the corner of willow/Morrison diagonally across from Y-not. The lot of land rachelmello is referring to you see close to the end of the bike path on cedar- he built out a brick building on the property and constructed a brand new. The land itself is between other property's and the bike path- so it is in a very weird spot

RE: that guy...

[rlcarr.livejournal.com]

So how exactly does he make money on your alleged scheme, given that income tax rates are less than 100%?

I have two properties, A and B. A has annual expenses of $10,000. B has annual expenses of $15,000. I rent A out for $30,000 and leave B vacant. My total profit is ($30,000 - $10,000) + ($0 - $15,000) = $5,000. I pay (say) 40% combined income tax on that and end up with $3,000 after tax.

Now I rent out B for $10,000. Total profit is now $15,000 and after paying 40% income tax I'm left with $9,000. That's better than $3,000.

Having deductible expenses is only going to help your overall situation if you would have had to incur those expenses anyway -- so if you're going to have to pay $N for something, then sure, it's to your advantage to try to structure things so that $N is tax-deductible. But if you didn't have to pay $N, not paying $N at all will always be better for you than paying $N and taking it as a tax deduction.

Re: that guy...

[rachelmello.livejournal.com]

The equation is probably closer to Property B has annual expenses of $10,000 and he could easily get $100,000 for it and make a tidy profit, but instead he asks $500,000 for it, claims a huge loss, and leaves it empty.

Re: that guy...

[rachelmello.livejournal.com]

...my point being that he can absorb a loss on Property B while making a huge profit on Property A, as long as within 3 - 5 years someone comes along and makes a bad business decision to rent at his inflated rates that will cover his losses. They can make a go of it for a year or two, he makes back his losses, they go out of business, and the cycle starts again. That's a perfectly successful business strategy for the developer that is actively damaging to the city. The laws should not be structured such that people can make lots of money off property in ways that actively harm the people who live here.

[spatch]

He can have his name on that ugly-ass building; that way everybody knows who to boo.

It's not even tacky bad, it's bad bad. That column on the corner that's half fake marble, half fake brick? Why? Worried a single fake marble or fake brick column might look too real? Ugh. And it's next door to the Rosebud and right across the street from a real gem of a bank building, however run-down. Sandwiched between two beautiful pieces of architecture. It's like biting into a lovely-looking cake and finding a layer of dried potpourri. Can't say as I'm a fan.

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with you 100% here about the atrocity that is that building, but I don't know whether we blame Poutahidis or Peter Quinn Architects. Quinn is a a licensed architect, has education and training. They should know better.

There's enough hideous and ugly there to go around. We can blame both of them!

SaraJane

[sarah jane (from livejournal.com)]

Blame both.
Peter Quinn Architects are despicable. The eyesores in Davis, Mass Ave Cambridge across the Crate and Barrel and now they're going to put another one in Teele Square.

Re: SaraJane

[spatch]

Oh, no. They're actually going to make the burnt-out pit look worse, aren't they.

[on-reserve.livejournal.com]

I gave this place three tries and all three times the staff was super rude. Beyond "I'm having a bad day" rude.
1. Allergic to shrimp, I asked if I could substitute a chicken WING for the shrimp on the shrimp and grits. No. For an upcharge? No. I could pay the full shrimp and grits price (sans shrimp) and the full price for an order of wings. Wow, that seems fair. Same night, noticed their menu said brunch went until 3p
2. Next weekend, bring whole family for brunch. At 2:15p. Brunch is closed. But your menu and signage all say that brunch goes until 3p, why publish that if it's not true? Oh, it's "chef's choice" on when to close down brunch? Then how about you don't publish brunch hours if they're subject to change. And, thanks for the apology that you publish hours and then rescind them at will - oh wait, no, you didn't offer even an "I'm sorry about that" instead you acted like I was the jerk for trying to get brunch at 2:15p
3. Music incredibly loud with only 2 tables in the place. Asked if you could turn it down a little. Nope. Again, chef's choice.

Dear Chef: When you have made a name for yourself, a name everyone knows, THEN you get to act like an asshole and still have business. Until then, you kind of have to please your customers so they come back and/or tell other people. You have to build your business before you start destroying it.

I'm not sorry to see them gone.

[teko.livejournal.com]

The one time I went there, they had no A/C in the middle of summer, didn't actually bring all the food I ordered, and couldn't answer basic questions about their menu items (i.e., what comes with this dish?). I remember trying their pimento cheese and being surprised that it had no flavor at all -- it was like a cup of chunky mayo. When the waitress asked what I thought of it and I told her it was weirdly flavorless, she said "Yeah, all of our customers say that!" and walked away.

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

I only ate there once. I found the food delicious, but the racism and classism in them having a "White Trash Sundae" ruined my appetite.

[teko.livejournal.com]

Noticed that at least some of the SEIZED signs are now gone and all of the windows are covered in black plastic, as of Saturday.

[ron_newman]

All of the SEIZED signs are gone. Looking through holes in that black plastic, I don't see any demolition or construction (yet, anyway).

[spatch]

The electricity has been on the entire time because the beer signs appear to be lit up 24/7. The last person to leave the place definitely left the lights on.

Well, damn.

[myfafo.livejournal.com]

I was really hoping to try that place. :(

RE: Well, damn.

[ron_newman]

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