My Late Great Uncle
Well, not my uncle, exactly – everybody’s uncle. Uncle Harry.
It’s two weeks since they shut down Uncle Harry’s New York Bagelry in Fig Garden Village. The terse one-page letter posted on a window announcing the abrupt closure has been pulled down and covered over with butcher paper. Big plans are afoot for the space once filled with café style tables and chairs, a backroom kitchen, a short-order line, kitschy old photos of East Coast urban scenes, and a reliably large gathering of bagel loving gossipers and gripers.
The Sunday morning after the shuttering, people arriving at the popular café to find locked doors fell into two groups: Those who hadn’t gotten the word, and those who didn’t believe it. Neither group got a bagel or cup of coffee from Uncle Harry’s at Fig Garden that morning and they never will. Too bad, because Fresno doesn’t have much café society going on. Fig Garden Village is one of the few approximations.
Rouse Properties of New York, the new owners, apparently made a business decision shortly after buying the 17-acre leafy complex two years ago for $106-million, that mom and pop stores, no matter how popular, apparently are not in the business model.
Several well-established tenants have moved out in recent months, many because the New York based real estate investment trust demands drastically increased rent and longer lease periods. In explanation, C.O.O. Brian Harper was quoted recently in the Fresno Business Journal, “We strongly value supporting this community and its local business owners, and are thrilled and honored that many of them have chosen Fig Garden Village as their home.” Blah, blah, blah…
Except, Uncle Harry and his bagels. And pretty good coffee. And prime location near the corner of Palm and Shaw. A source told me that the owners tried everything to come to terms with Rouse for a new lease, but the management company wanted a ten-year lease with escalating rent each year starting well above the current $15,000 per month. “In the end, they just wouldn’t work with us,” she said.
So there goes Harry’s. For nearly twenty years, a popular meeting place for thousands of folks who simply enjoyed the ambiance, a bagel with a generous schmear, pretty good coffee, friendly service – you know, the kind of place most shopping center management companies might like to have in their mix. And there goes Deli Delicious, next door, too. They are being forced to shut down for two months and relocate to the back 40, someplace near the noodle joint. And there goes Top Drawer, a tiny little boutique tucked into a corner next to La Boulangerie, which, by the way is changing hands, subject to approval of, well, you know who. Top Drawer? “This store just fits in Fig Garden,” owner Jane Saunders told the Busines Journal, recently, “everything about it belongs here.” Yet, Top Drawer will likely be gone soon because Rouse is said to be bringing in a national paper chain which sells much the same stuff as Top Drawer.
It is the callous manner that rankles. Customers are rarely consulted and never have much influence, yet we all pay the freight. For instance, take the airline industry. We all get a little twitchy when embarking on a journey requiring air travel; it just makes one anxious. You know, the prospect of being dragged from your overbooked airplane seat, or paying extortion rates for an extra fanny pack, or being groped by a federal functionary, or sweating out your boarding group assignment – well, it’s just not fun dealing with corporate America these days.
Like Rouse Properties. For $106-million they can do whatever they please with Uncle Harry’s floor space, of course, and the public be damned. There are four other Uncle Harry’s bagel shops in Fresno, they all serve a pretty good cup of joe. I can think of at least four other places to buy a bagel in the Village. But it’s not the same. My informal survey of friends and acquaintances revealed that a lot of people are pretty torqued off about the disappearance of UHB. And more than a few say they are done with FGV.
Yes, people always say that, and then they flock to the chic new store in a few months to buy leotards and letterheads and loafers. But still, Sunday mornings after church will never be the same. Not since Uncle Harry left the Village.