An avocado-focused fast-casual dining chain in NoMad is facing eviction over supposedly putrid smells that allegedly emanate throughout the building where it’s set up shop, court records show.
Joseph Moinian, CEO and founder of real estate firm the Moinian Group, is seeking to boot the salad shop, Avo, from the ground-floor storefront of a 24-story office building at 245 Fifth Ave., claiming that the chain is in default of its lease by not stopping the stench.
“You have failed to operate your business in a manner that is free of noxious odors,” Moinian himself wrote in an April 2 notice to Avo owner and founder Alessando Biggi. The letter gives Avo 30 days to resolve the issue otherwise its lease will be terminated seven days after that. The letter cited only the smell, not missed rent or any other issues, as the reason Moinian is seeking the eviction.
Avo opened in the building in 2022 after inking a 15-year lease for 1,400 square feet of space on the ground floor of the roughly 315,000-square-foot tower, which was completed in 1927. Its annual base rent started at $20,000 a month for the first year, rising to $32,792 a month in 2037, records show.
But Biggi is now taking the Moinian Group to court over the threatened eviction and seeking a restraining order to stop it, according to a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court this week. A copy of Monian’s letter was included in the lawsuit.
Robert Kaplan, an attorney at an independent White Plains-based law firm, who is representing Avo, wrote in the complaint that the Moinian Group’s allegations are “groundless.” Kaplan declined to comment further.
Hal Coopersmith, an attorney at Midtown-based law firm Coopersmith & Coopersmith, who is representing Moinian in the lease dispute, also declined to comment.
Other tenants in the building, between East 27th and East 28th streets, include the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, liquor company Teramana Tequila and the information technology company Prove, according to CoStar.
A security officer working at the front desk of the main office building, adjacent to Avo, told Crain’s Thursday that he regularly gets complaints about the smell from building tenants, but that it doesn’t bother him personally. And two employees at Avo said they’re also aware of the odor, especially when chicken is cooking in the oven, because the exhaust doesn’t properly disperse.
Thor Equities maintains a minority stake in the building, records show. Neither Thor Equities nor the Moinian Group responded to a request for comment by press time.
Avo, which also offers vegan and vegetarian options, has four other locations in the city, including at 601 Lexington Ave. in Midtown East and 269 11th Ave. in Chelsea, according to its website.
