By BOB SMITH
Kitsap News Group
PORT ORCHARD — Bay Street’s popular stop for ice cream and chocolate desserts will soon disappear from its familiar location in the Port Orchard Public Market, according to co-owner Matt Carter.
The shop, which opens outside to the Sinclair Inlet waterfront, has been asked by property owner Abadan Holdings, LLC to vacate the premises at the end of the business’s lease just before midnight on Sept. 30.
The Independent was unable to reach a representative for Abadan Holdings, a Lake Forest Park-based company owned by Mansour Samadpour. The property owner and president of IEH Laboratories has substantial business investments in buildings along Bay Street in Port Orchard. Phone calls to Dalia Alfi, listed as executive vice president of IEH Laboratories and Holdings LLC, were not answered.
Carter, who confirmed that his business’s lease was not being renewed, said he is unsure where the shop will relocate.
“For now, (we’ll remain in) Westbay (Shopping Center),” he said. “But we’ve been looking around and exploring options.”
Carter &Co. has leased space in Westbay, where it uses commercial kitchen facilities there to create chocolate confections and cakes for sale at its shop in the Port Orchard Public Market.
The business owner said his shop’s closing date is firm: “(Abadan) was very formal about making sure we knew to be gone by 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 30.”
When Carter asked why the lease was not being renewed, the property managers replied that it was an effort to promote “tranquility between tenants since we are ‘troublemakers.’ ”
He intimated that relations with some of the other business owners had been tenuous.
One thing is certain, though, Carter said. He won’t ever rent from Abadan again — which excludes the long-empty space that once was occupied by That One Bakery a few years ago.
Steve Sego, co-owner of The Dock Bar and Eatery in the Public Market, said he wasn’t aware of plans for a new tenant to replace Carter &Co. It “seems there was some tension between the landlord and the tenant,” Sego said of the reasons he believes contributed to the leasing issue.
Matt Berg, managing broker with Reid Property Management of Silverdale, said the Carter &Co. space will be made available for leasing.
