Why Black N Brew’s lease in East Passyunk wasn’t renewed

East Passyunk coffee shop Black N Brew has been a fixture on the avenue for 17 years, a well-loved corner cafe clad in an Isaiah Zagar mural.

So there was outcry in South Philly when its owners announced on social media that the shop’s landlord declined to renew their lease with two months’ notice.

Commenters responded in droves, suggesting potential spaces to move and calling out Black N Brew’s landlords, the Passyunk Avenue Revitalization Corp. (PARC), on Facebook and Instagram.

“Why is this happening!? We want answers,” one wrote.

According to PARC, it’s simple: Black N Brew missed rent and utility payments. After years of failed negotiations around pandemic-era lapses and two one-year lease extensions, executive director Alex Balloon said, PARC decided to look for a new tenant.

“During the pandemic we provided thousands of dollars in rent relief and utility waivers for Black N Brew and our other commercial tenants,” Balloon said. “I’m unaware of other landlords on Passyunk Avenue providing such generous financial relief.”

Black N Brew owners Jennifer and Colleen DeCesare have disputed PARC’s assertions in interviews with other media outlets, citing canceled checks and an identity theft-induced snafu as possible explanations for the discrepancies.

But Black N Brew’s financial challenges date to before the pandemic. Court records show liens for nonpayment of state sales taxes beginning in 2018, with the latest, for roughly $50,000 including interest and fines, coming earlier this month.

In a statement to The Inquirer, Jennifer DeCesare said, “The outstanding tax liabilities are a separate issue and have nothing to do with making our monthly rent payment. We have been in an active payment agreement with the state, which was approved well before PARC made a decision to not renew our lease.”

She added that her wife, Colleen, had nothing to do with the circumstances that led to the liens. “I do the finances; I made mistakes.”

This tale of small-business hardship seems to have gained outsized attention because it’s set in one of Philadelphia’s most successful neighborhood commercial corridors. PARC — a nonprofit dating to when Passyunk Avenue struggled with vacancy and rundown buildings — has its share of supporters. Balloon said PARC depends on rent payments to fund its operations, such as daily cleaning of the avenue and other services.

Following Black N Brew’s public pleas, however, some have cast PARC as a villain. Many have rallied behind the cafe, with neighbors attesting to its presence in the community and launching a GoFundMe for a move to a new location.

PARC has been accused of pushing Black N Brew out in favor of higher-end businesses — which Balloon adamantly denies.

“The antidote to gentrification is working to retain the existing businesses you have,” said Balloon, who has been with the organization for two years. “We’re not out trying to recruit Starbucks to Passyunk Avenue.”

The DeCesares declined to talk with The Inquirer about specifics of their situation. According to accounts the DeCesares gave other news outlets, they became aware that their lease renewal was in question in early December, when PARC notified them of an outstanding balance tied to pandemic rent.

The DeCesares have said they supplied proof of payment soon after. When they didn’t hear back, they thought the situation had been resolved. Then, on Dec. 27, they were notified the lease wouldn’t be renewed, and they would have to vacate by end of February.

The dispute centers on outstanding rent and utility payments from 2020 and 2021, which were difficult years for many in the food service industry. The shop closed in March 2020 and did not reopen until October 2020 after the city allowed indoor dining to resume.

In September 2020, Jennifer DeCesare (then Jennifer Kaufman) published an online petition asking the community to back the shop’s request that PARC extend the rent repayment deadline. “We do not need a rent freeze; we need time [to] get back on our feet,” the petition said.

Asked how the situation resolved, Jennifer DeCesare declined to comment further to The Inquirer. In 2021, court records show, a judge ordered Black N Brew to pay over $42,000 to Deck Capital, a national lender. In 2022 and 2023, further state liens were filed against the business.

Jennifer DeCesare disputed the accuracy of the numbers in the court records. The state’s department of revenue declined to comment on the specific case but confirmed lien amounts reflect interest, fines, and fees.

Balloon said PARC needs to find a more reliable tenant for the Black N Brew space: “Every dollar we lose [on back rent] and trying to collect it is dollars we can’t spend on cleaning and other public space enhancements.”

A neighbor launched a new petition online after Black N Brew learned its lease would not be renewed. It contended that PARC’s decision was at odds with its mission statement. Some Passyunk Avenue business owners reacted by criticizing PARC on social media.

“For 17 years — before we or the (increasingly ironically named) Passyunk Avenue Revitalization Corporation (@passyarc) existed — Black N Brew has been a pillar of the community,” wrote Passyunk restaurant Le Virtu on Instagram. “‘Stewardship of the avenue, @passyarc’s putative mission, shouldn’t include destroying viable businesses and damaging the community.”

Reached by phone, Le Virtu’s Francis Cratil-Cretarola said he had air-conditioning and insulation issues that impacted his business that went unaddressed as a PARC tenant. He also felt PARC had a track record of glossing over the mix of businesses on the street and their proximity to competitors of a similar bent.

Former Alphabet Academy owner Jim Gallo responded to Black N Brew’s Instagram post by saying: “As a former PARC board member, I can go on and on about how PARC made several poor financial decisions over the years, but I find it strange why they never really supported minority-owned businesses on the avenue ... continuing a pattern one has to question with Black & Brew.”

Balloon said PARC has received a flood of email accusing the organization of everything from gentrifying the avenue to being responsible for the recent influx of convenience stores and vape shops. He notes that none of the nonprofit’s seven commercial storefronts are rented out for such uses.

“Passyunk Avenue has a vacancy rate of below 5%,” Balloon said. “If you go to Fishtown, they’re building lots of housing and lots of new commercial space. There’s lots of room to add concepts and open businesses. But we’re full. We don’t have a vacancy problem here.”

Other business owners on the avenue reported positive experiences with PARC.

“They’ve been easy landlords,” said chef Joncarl Lachman, who has been PARC’s tenant for more than a decade, as a resident and owner of the former Noord. “They worked with us through the pandemic and all of that.”

Heather Thomason, whose Primal Supply butcher shop closed last May, said PARC allowed her to exit her lease early. “I didn’t have too much interaction with the current leadership, which changed in my final year, but they kept taking care of my needs.”

PARC’s roots date to the days of Democratic State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo, who represented South Philly from 1978 to 2008. In the 1990s, he founded the Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods, a nonprofit that he used to — among other things — acquire properties in South Philadelphia.

Back then, the neighborhood around Passyunk Avenue and South Philadelphia generally was coming out of decades of population loss. The Citizens Alliance bought 15 dilapidated commercial-residential buildings on the avenue in the early 2000s and renovated them, attracting Black N Brew among other tenants.

The Citizens Alliance was the centerpiece of the federal investigation that sent Fumo to prison. In the aftermath, the attorney general’s office asked Paul Levy of the Center City District to analyze whether the organization could be salvaged. He recommended rechristening it as PARC and selling off everything but holdings around Passyunk Avenue.

“The appearance of new restaurants, cafes, a hardware store, boutiques, and design shops attracted other investors to the street,” reads a report by Levy in 2009.

This week, Levy said the organization’s track record since remains strong.

“What is so lacking on so many neighborhood commercial corridors is an entity that can own and strategically lease property and throw off income to do more,” said Levy, who stepped down as head of the business advocacy group Center City District last year. “It is not like a private developer making money off the corridor. It has a public purpose.”