Service Station Restaurant Owners Are Out; Lease Sold Back To Landlord

The owners of the Service Station restaurant in East Hampton have sold their lease back to their landlord as the result of a legal settlement, after the details of the lease agreement led to a lawsuit.

Michael Gluckman and Shane Dyckman, who opened Service Station in 2016 at 100 Montauk Highway—a space formerly occupied by Nichol’s Restaurant and Winston’s Bar and Grill—announced the sale via the restaurant’s Instagram account on Tuesday, January 30, pointing fingers at “over zealous” code enforcement.

Mr. Gluckman and Mr. Dyckman would not disclose the amount the landlord, FF&G Realty Corp., paid to buy back the lease of the restaurant. The restaurateurs said on Wednesday, January 31, that the sale settles a lawsuit they filed against FF&G in September last year concerning use of the site’s brick patio.

Mr. Dyckman, who also owns SagTown Coffee in Sag Harbor, said that he and Mr. Gluckman were “under the assumption” that seating customers on the brick patio was permitted, and Mr. Gluckman said that permission for outdoor seating was included in the lease he and Mr. Dyckman signed with FF&G. However, James Fischer, one of the principal owners of FF&G, said on Wednesday that outdoor seating was not included in the lease signed in March 2016.

The Service Station owners sued their landlord after they were sued by the Village of East Hampton in July last year for violating village code by using the outdoor brick patio as extra space for the restaurant. The lawsuit was brought forth after Robert Jahoda, a village code enforcement officer, saw customers being served food on the brick patio on July 21, 2017. The use of the patio for outdoor dining had been previously cited by East Hampton Village Code Enforcement Officer Kent Howie on August 23, 2016. According to the village lawsuit, FF&G built the outdoor patio after being denied permission for it by the Village Zoning Board of Appeals in 1977. While the ZBA allowed the patio to stay on the condition that it not be used for outdoor dining in 1986, an amendment to village code by the Village Board of Trustees in 2009 stated “no variance shall be granted to permit the introduction of any outdoor use, including outdoor dining, to a preexisting nonconforming commercial use in a residential district.” Village Administrator Becky Hansen said on Wednesday that Mr. Gluckman and Mr. Dyckman pleaded guilty to violations and signed a stipulation of settlement. Mr. Gluckman said that he and Mr. Dyckman paid off a $1,000 fine to the village.

Mr. Fischer said the lease for the restaurant building was recently picked up by a new company called Quiet Clam, LLC. He added that there will be a “short-term closing” of the restaurant in order to figure out who will be in charge of operations, and gave an estimate of two weeks to figure out who takes leadership of the eatery.

“It’s really unfortunate because we worked so hard on the restaurant and it was very popular in the community,” Mr. Dyckman said.

“We want a new project where we don’t have problems with the village,” Mr. Gluckman said.