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Montco cafe fights for its location

Tucked away in an Abington shopping center, the Corner Cafe is surrounded by construction and renovations. Inside, its staff continues serving food and greeting diners by name. Regular customers fill the green booths and tables, against the backdrop of a mural depicting breakfast and lunch dishes.

The Corner Cafe's continued presence in the Huntingdon Valley Shopping Center is under challenge by landlord Kravco Co. L.L.C.
The Corner Cafe's continued presence in the Huntingdon Valley Shopping Center is under challenge by landlord Kravco Co. L.L.C.Read moreDAVID SWANSON / Staff Photographer

Tucked away in an Abington shopping center, the Corner Cafe is surrounded by construction and renovations.

Inside, its staff continues serving food and greeting diners by name. Regular customers fill the green booths and tables, against the backdrop of a mural depicting breakfast and lunch dishes.

"To me, this place is just like Cheers," said customer Bud Seeger, a retired firefighter. "You come in and everyone knows your name."

But the end may be in sight for the local cafe, frequented daily by dozens of loyal customers, many of them older Montgomery County residents.

Kravco Co. L.L.C., owner of the Huntingdon Valley Shopping Center, denied the restaurant a lease extension and asked the cafe to leave by the end of this past January, citing its failure to meet a minimum sales requirement. As Kravco works to renovate the shopping center and bring in new tenants, Corner Cafe owner John Graff is fighting to stay, arguing that he had a right to extend his lease.

On the eve of a hearing last week in Montgomery County Court over the cafe's lease status, the restaurant filed for bankruptcy. That filing pushed the proceedings into federal bankruptcy court, granting the restaurant some extra time. It was also an attempt by Graff to protect himself from owing payments on outstanding debts if the restaurant closes.

As the legal dispute stretches on, regular customers have rallied around the restaurant, signing petitions, packing public meetings to rally support, and peppering Graff with questions about the cafe's fate.

"It's a staple in the neighborhood," said Kathleen Widman, 59, of Abington.

The Corner Cafe opened in 1999, taking the place of a former deli. Graff, 55, purchased half-ownership of the restaurant a few years later, inheriting the lease and taking control of day-to-day operations.

The lease ran out at the end of January, but it contained a right to renew for an additional five years.

Graff, who said he had received verbal promises from Kravco representatives that his restaurant could remain in place despite construction and renovations in the rest of the shopping center, said he did not know that his lease contained clauses allowing Kravco to deny the extension option.

The lease states that the restaurant must have at least $2.3 million in gross sales in the year before its renewal term.

In court filings, Kravco argues that it had the legal right to not extend the lease; the company also filed a copy of a 2009 letter informing Graff that his lease would be extended five years despite his failure to meet the minimum gross sales.

The cafe "is simply looking for reasons to muddy the waters and tie up [Kravco's] right to possession," the company wrote in a court filing.

Kravco representatives did not return messages left last week.

Graff, who lives in the Somerton neighborhood of Northeast Philadelphia, admits he failed to meet the minimum sales. His sales are less than $1 million per year, he said, but said he did not know of the requirement.

"I didn't know they had 'out' clauses," he said. "Was it my stupidity a little bit? Sure, yeah."

Graff said he had been prepared to present witnesses from meetings in the last few years between the shopping center tenants and Kravco at which Kravco representatives said the restaurant would stay in place, even as stores next to it were demolished to make way for a new Rite Aid. Other stores were demolished to build a Starbucks and a new location for Iron Hill Brewery, currently under construction.

Graff said he is not yet willing to give up his fight; he says he is working to stand up for small, family-owned businesses.

But he is also looking into other locations for the Corner Cafe.

"We're looking for locations, but I want to own the ground," he said, to avoid potential issues with another lease agreement.

Alex Kane of Abington goes to the Corner Cafe every day for breakfast. At age 95, the World War II veteran drives himself from his Abington condo to the shopping center. He often orders Raisin Bran and shares stories with other customers about his time at war and his career as a roofer.

"This is the stuff you're never going to have in Starbucks," Graff said one morning last week as he sat next to Kane. "You know what I'm saying?"

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