AMHERST — Porta, the downtown restaurant and bar that repeatedly ran afoul of state alcohol laws, was kicked out of its 51 East Pleasant St. site, less than a week after the Board of License Commissioners revoked its liquor license.
The Westborough-based company that owns the downtown building recently evicted the restaurant, changing the locks and securing the property.
Herbet Alexander, a trustee for Central Amhert Realty Trust, said that even though Porta owner Richard Annunziata signed a five-year lease last fall through September 2023, that deal is no longer in effect because Annunziata has likely defaulted on the terms of the arrangement.
“My interpretation is there’s no longer a lease,” Alexander said.
Attempts to reach Annunziata for comment last Tuesday were unsuccessful.
The decision last week to revoke Porta’s liquor license came after town officials and Amherst Police Chief Scott Livingstone described “egregious” violations of alcohol laws at Porta, including allowing underage alcohol consumption and having no staff supervising customers. Livingstone characterized the violations as the worst he had seen in 40 years in law enforcement and said that Annunziata did not deserve the privilege of running a restaurant in Amherst.
In addition to the liquor law violations, Annunziata faced complaints from former employees and contractors who contend they have not been paid. A Belchertown electrician recently filed a complaint in Eastern Hampshire District Court about not being compensated for services he provided Annunziata.
Annunziata also is facing a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Springfield alleging trademark infringement, trade dress infringement, unfair competition and false designation of origin under the Lanham Act from the owners of three other Porta restaurants in New Jersey and Philadelphia.
Amherst Police said they believe that Annunziata has returned to New Jersey and does not intend to come back to the area.
An investor in the business, Ruben Luster of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, who with business partner Phil Wright put up $150,000 to get Porta off the ground, said he left the area shortly after its March 2 opening as problems started to develop.
“The future’s done,” Luster said of the Porta in Amherst.
Luster, who runs five bagel shops, a restaurant and a piano bar in Myrtle Beach, said he expected Porta to be primarily focused on food, with the bar a secondary component. But he said Annunziata decided that the bar would be the main aspect.
“It should have been successful. When we invested, the idea was that he would build the place up and then we would have taken over,” Luster said. “He had a different vision than we had.”
Luster said he chalks up the deal to a bad investment and does not anticipate getting his money back.
Central Amherst Realty Trust’s arrangement with Porta was reached shortly after the town’s Historical Commission last September imposed a year-long demolition delay on the building, which was constructed in 1946 as an auto repair shop. Prior to Bertucci’s, which arrived in December 1992, the site was used as Rowe’s Chrysler-Plymouth dealership.
With Bertucci’s gone, Central Amherst Realty Trust had plans to demolish the 51 East Pleasant St. building, as well as the adjacent 70-year-old building at 33-37 East Pleasant that houses Amherst Copy & Designworks and The Spoke, to make way for new mixed-use buildings, featuring 68 apartments, that would have supplemented other mixed-use developments at the northern end of downtown, including Kendrick Place and One East Pleasant.
Alexander said those redevelopment plans are being abandoned, in part because he received critical feedback from the town’s Design Review Board, which coupled with the decision from the Historical Commission indicated that townspeople were not ready to support that type of “in-fill” project.
“We are not going back to that development,” Alexander said. “We don’t want to upset the town.”
With Porta gone, Alexander said he has begun the process of looking for people interested in running a restaurant, which he said is the best use for the 7,900-square-foot building.
“Folks have already begun contacting us. It’s a great space and the right operator can do very well,” Alexander said, pointing out that Bertucci’s was there for almost 26 years before closing in spring 2018.
“We had a great tenant for many years and are looking for a similar relationship,” he added.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.