Letter to the Editor - The Facts Regarding The Closing Of The Butterfly Café

It is with tremendous sadness that my wife Gina and I, owners of the Butterfly Café, must announce the imminent closure of our beloved Café. Despite originally signing a five year lease, last year our landlords had found a technicality in the lease that allowed them to end our lease and to constructively evict us, and ending our dreams and hopes. This despite the fact that throughout our tenancy we have strived to be good tenants by spending over $13,000, in two short years, for needed repairs and renovations to our landlords building.

Two and a half years ago, during the worst recession in memory, my wife and I invested our life savings into the Mariposa business community and our Café. We had presented Nancy Pimentel (our landlord) with a 5 year business plan, after which she then offered and signed a 5 year lease with us. I still vividly remember Nancy Pimentel wishing us every success in our new business and hoping we would endure a long lasting landlord tenant relationship.

Last year we were informed by Flora and Aaron Savage that they had taken over the management responsibilities of the property and would be our new acting landlords. At the same time they informed us that after carefully examining our lease, they had found a technicality that technically broke our original five year lease. This technicality had gone unnoticed by myself (my fault completely) and our actual building owner and landlord signee Nancy Pimentel. Flora and Aaron then offered my wife and I a one year lease with the warning- ‘take it or vacate within 30 days’. We were also told this term was not up for negotiation and must be signed within 24 hours. The next day, with my wife weeping at my side at the thought of losing her dream, Flora Savage coldly told us ‘this new 1 year lease is a gift and that my wife should have the dignity to sign the lease graciously’. Flora Savage, I will never forget that day when you coldly gutted my wife’s soul, heart, and dreams, and told us to take it graciously while you stood over us with pen in hand.
My wife Gina and I were devastated and gutted at the news our acting landlords had delivered. We were both also at loss to explain the harsh treatment we were receiving after we had invested so much money into our landlord’s building( over $10,000) in our first 2 years of operation. By contrast our landlords continually told us they were broke and unable to fix leaking roofs etc. To this day, our cooks work underneath a ceiling that leaks and soaks them during heavy rain storms, as our landlords won’t even install basic roof gutters to divert water. Our outdoor storage shed is almost completely without roof and our good hearted offers to assist in repair expenses have gone unnoticed.

About three weeks ago my wife and I sent our landlords a plea asking them to reconsider our lease and offering to pay a share of any needed future repairs to maintain their building. Below is a summary of our plea.

As a first attempt at running a restaurant, Gina and I are very proud of what we and our staff have accomplished in such a short time. While our business is short lived, our web based reviews (customer feedback) ranked us as the #1 restaurant to dine in Mariposa for almost our entire existence. We have further been honored by unsolicited international magazine articles in American Airline on board flight magazine and Parent and Child magazine. These reviews accompany other reviews by National newspapers in San Jose, Dallas and Kansas City. We are further honored by knowing that European travel guides such as the prestigious French guide ‘Le Routard’ presently rate us as the best restaurant in the area( based on tourist feedback) when visiting Yosemite.

As owners of a small Mariposa business we also like to think we have been a positive influence to the community by employing over 20 employees at peak season. We have also maintained a ‘Buy Local’ policy and are proud to have purchased over $300,000 in products and services locally. Combined with our payroll and TOT taxes, we have reinvested over $600,000 into the Mariposa local economy in only 2 short years. We have supported the following types of local businesses:- local produce and food suppliers, fish suppliers, wineries, brewers, bakeries, coffee roasters, glass shops, stationeries, insurance companies, attorneys, accountants, florist and garden shops, electricians, mechanical contractors, plumbers, general contractors, handymen, local artists, local propane and gas suppliers, to name a few.

When supporting our local community, we and our staff are also proud to say we have put our money and efforts where our mouths are. We were able to hold charity events for the Ethos group and The Heritage House who were both in dire need of support. And thanks to our incredible and generous staff, who never blinked at donating their time, we were able to donate 100% of each event’s proceeds to the respective charities and raising thousands of dollars. Staff member Melissa Moors was instrumental in her assistance with these events. Like so many other businesses in town; we have also donated hundreds of free gift certificates to local causes and charities.

Unfortunately our pleas and attempts at renewing a lease have been completely ignored, and have gone without a single response.

It is also unfortunate that our landlords did not have the class or integrity to tell us news of our lease first and before others. Instead, it was common knowledge in Mariposa before we had heard anything from our landlords regarding our lease. Our employees were the first to tell us our lease would not be renewed as they had got wind several weeks BEFORE we actually received a certified letter from our landlords announcing their intentions not to renew. We also received no less than 5 phone calls from well meaning customers who informed us of Flora’s intentions to open her own business, at our location, and before our notification of non renewal. This has caused a panic among our employees who have had to find other jobs before the onset of winter and thus has crippled our restaurant operations. This crippling effect has meant we had to have closures on many busy nights and suffer the resulting loss of income.

As such, we are preparing to close this fall and we would like to thank all those local customers and businesses who have supported us for our 2+ short years of business. In particular we would like to thank the visitor center, tourism bureau and hotels such as Best Western, Super Eight, and the Comfort Inn for their past support. We would also like to thank all the downtown merchants who have recommended our Café to tourists on a regular basis for the past two years.

We would also like to thank our dedicated and hard working staff for all their efforts in the past few years. The Butterfly Café success has largely been due to our wonderful staff that has put their hearts and souls into our business along with us. In particular we would like to thank staff members Melissa Moors and Dallas Brown for making our business lives so much easier by consistently providing outstanding service and ensuring that both our evening and day shifts ran smoothly. Both these employees are more than equally responsible for any of our small successes, and should also take pride in what we have accomplished together in such a short time.

We hope that we have been a positive presence in our community and would like to thank all of Mariposa along with other local communities nearby for their past support. Gina and I will go on to greener pastures soon.

Thank –you Mariposa, it’s been a slice!

John Foard
Mariposa, Ca.