AT A GLANCE
- Past and future rent owned by a North Charleston commissary kitchen under a 10-year lease has led to a lawsuit seeking more than $2 million in damages.
- KTCHeN closed this summer under what its owners said was the threat of eviction.
- The business, which opened in 2016, signed a new decade-long lease in February 2024.
A lawsuit against the owners of a commissary kitchen in North Charleston seeks four months of unpaid rent as well as that due for the balance of a 10-year lease, The Post and Courier newspaper reported.
With interest and fees, the claim against Keila Viera and Christopher Garate comes to $2.25 million.
Viera and Garate closed KTCHeN, 6185 Rivers Ave., this summer. They gave the 30 mobile food businesses that used the facility three weeks to find new locations.
KTCHeN was in the Aviation Square Shopping Center, the newspaper reported. The center’s owner is Benderson Development, and Southeast Partners LLC is named as a managing member on the lease agreement. Southeast Partners, co-founder, Rob Wilson, signed the lease for the company.
The plaintiffs declined to comment.
Viera and Garate did not answer several requests for comment, The Post and Courier reported. However in a July email to the newspaper, they said they had no choice but to close KTCHeN after their landlord asked them to leave under threat of eviction.