A court order resulted in the closing of Temple Gourmet Chinese restaurant in Red Bank last week.
A note seen next to the eviction notice on the restaurant’s front door Friday evening. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
A warrant of removal issued by a New Jersey Superior Court judge forced the shutdown of the restaurant, at 91 Broad Street, last Wednesday.
That day, restaurant owner Victor Kuo told redbankgreen that the landlord, the Ten Company, had filed a court action against him in May, 2020, “for missing a month’s rent when the pandemic started. We’ll be open again on Friday.”
Dan Himelman, attorney for the Ten Company, declined to comment Monday, except to say that “Mr. Kuo’s account is untrue.”
On Friday evening, a handwritten “under renovation” note was taped to the outside of the restaurant’s front door. The business remained closed through the weekend.
Neither Temple’s Facebook page or website gave any indication of the shutdown as of Monday morning, and Kuo did not immediately respond to follow-up questions.
Documents in the matter were unavailable through the state courts website, marked as “not accessible” under a rule regarding cases in mediation.
In 2020, during the first seasonal shutdown of the north end of Broad Street for the Broadwalk dining promenade, Kuo lobbied local officials to extend the zone southward to include his and other businesses.
The zone was “successful” in helping restaurants in the zone recover from early pandemic losses, he told redbankgreen, “but it’s sucking our customers away.”
Temple opened in early 2011.
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