Bar Ferdinand to close as lease runs out

Monday, Oct. 10 will be the finale after more than a decade for Bar Ferdinand, Owen Kamihira's lively Spanish tapas bar on Liberties Walk in Northern Liberties.

The impending closing - which was met with a chorus of groans and disappointment on Facebook - was not by Kamihira's choice, he said.

Kamihira said a year of lease negotiations was going nowhere as the landlord wanted to boost rent to what he said was an unworkable number.

"It's a business," Kamihira, a master of understatement, pointed out. It's the consequences of a restaurant's not owning the bricks.

He declined to comment on his landlord, a partnership of Oaktree Capital Management L.P., and the Kushner Companies, owned in part by Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law. He initially leased through developer Bart Blatstein. The restaurant opened in July 2006.

Kamihira said he was looking elsewhere to relocate the restaurant.

Kamihira also owns El Camino Real, a Tex-Mex bar, across the way. That lease has seven years remaining, Kamihira said. Kamihira is looking for a winter opening of a Manayunk branch of El Camino Real.

The Facebook message, posted Sept. 30, read: "It is with heavy hearts that Bar Ferdinand will be calling last call and closing it's doors for the very last time on Monday, October 10th. We would like to sincerely thank every guest we've hosted through-out the last eleven years as well as every person we've had the opportunity to employ. Our guests and staff have made this restaurant a second home for many of us and we wouldn't have had the success we've had without you. Please join us in our last few weeks of being open to enjoy delicious Spanish wines and tapas in a beautiful atmosphere with the excellent service we are so proud to provide and help us say good bye."

Classy move to give notice. "I couldn't cut and run," Kamihira said. "My customers and employees are so good to me."