\n<\/p>\n
Eva Volmar, owner of La Cachette du Coin in Brooklyn, alleges that her landlord, broker and contractor mishandled her commercial lease and restaurant buildout, leaving her with mounting debt. As the dispute heads to court, Volmar says she believes she is being pushed out of the space she renovated so it can be leased at a higher rate.<\/p>\n
BROOKLYN \u2014 When Eva Volmar signed the lease on a raw space in March 2024 that she would eventually transform into her popular restaurant, La Cachette du Coin<\/a>, she thought at the time that her dream had come true. Volmar planned to blend Haitian cuisine from her homeland with high-end French culinary techniques to create a fine-dining establishment.\u00a0<\/p>\n Volmar had owned a hair salon and a water company in her native Haiti, then worked as a nurse in the United States. To launch her culinary venture, the 38-year-old single mother of two poured her life savings, over $580,000, into building out and furnishing the future restaurant. It was her first experience working with contractors and retail brokers in a city mired in complex zoning and permit requirements.<\/p>\n But within months, her dream began to unravel. Volmar says her broker, landlord, contractor and lawyer neglected their professional duties, left her with debt, and embroiled her in a legal battle, threatening to upend her business and family\u2019s future.<\/p>\n On June 16, Volmar appeared in Brooklyn\u2019s commercial tenant housing court to argue her case, with Judge Javier Ortiz ordering all parties to return on Aug. 25.<\/p>\n At the heart of the legal battle is what Volmar characterizes as a bad-faith campaign to displace her, orchestrated by her landlord, Nigel Boyden. Volmar alleges that Boyden is attempting to seize the space occupied by La Cachette now that she has fully renovated it, intending to re-lease it to a new tenant at a higher market rate.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Volmar said that battling her landlord while starting a business as a single mother of two has taken a toll. The fight left her little time and money to market her restaurant, which left it empty on most days until an influencer\u2019s secret visit made La Cachette du Coin a viral sensation in May \u2014 giving her a much-needed boost.<\/p>\n At this point, Volmar told The Haitian Times <\/em>special projects editor, who is related to her, about the court case she felt was even more worrisome. The information prompted an investigation.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m telling you, I\u2019ve been [through] hell for this restaurant,\u201d Volmar said. \u201cIt\u2019s gone [on] more than a year and a half. I cannot even sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n Boyden and his lawyer did not respond to messages seeking comment about the ongoing case.<\/p>\n Saran Nurse, an assistant professor in Business and Public Management at Kean University<\/a>, who has studied the displacement of minority business owners in Brooklyn, said landlords can require tenants to pay for all the renovations to an otherwise empty space.\u00a0<\/p>\n For startups, this can be financially stressful, especially for a restaurant where profit margins are narrow. This leads to vulnerability, Nurse said, that appears to be a factor in Volmar\u2019s case.<\/p>\n When Morris Mishan, a real estate broker, brought Volmar to the ground-floor property at 625 Rogers Avenue in Prospect Lefferts Gardens (PLG) in the newly built 6-story condominium in early 2024, Volmar did not want a raw commercial space with concrete floors, exposed pipes and bare cement walls.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI said \u2018No, I need a space to start working right away,\u2019\u201d Volmar said. \u201cHe told me, \u2018No, no, no, this space is ready.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n At the time, the building did not have a Certificate of Occupancy, which the New York City Department of Buildings<\/a> (DOB) requires before anyone can legally occupy a building. The process of getting a certificate from the DOB can take a year. Without the certificate, work could not be started in the building.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a statement to The Haitian Times<\/em>, Mishan said he knew the building was in the process of getting a certificate at the time and that Volmar\u2019s rent-free period was tied to that and he was clear that the space was not move-in ready.\u00a0<\/p>\n Part of a broker\u2019s responsibility is negotiating favorable lease terms, such as securing the lowest possible rent or security deposit, for their clients. These negotiations are formalized in a proposal, commonly called a \u201cterm sheet<\/a>\u201d or a letter of intent, that the broker submits to the landlord before a lease is drawn up.\u00a0<\/p>\n In Volmar\u2019s list of terms, she requested four months\u2019 security and one month\u2019s rent; however, she received a lease detailing five months\u2019 security.\u00a0<\/p>\n Volmar paid the asking price \u2014 a $10,000-a-month rent, five months\u2019 security and one month\u2019s rent upfront totaling $60,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mishan said he could not confirm why the security deposit increased between the letter and the lease, but noted that landlords sometimes request additional security from first-time operators.\u00a0<\/p>\n In March 2024, Volmar and her business partner signed the lease with developer Boyden, who runs Kingsdel Real Estate<\/a> and Croxdale Real Estate Management<\/a> \u2014 two firms behind multi-million-dollar condominium projects in Brooklyn.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the lease, Boyden agreed to lay hardwood tiling over the cement floors, install the drop ceiling and wall off the bathrooms before handing the space to Volmar.\u00a0<\/p>\n For the buildout, Volmar turned to a contractor recommended by Mishan, her real estate broker with Tri State Commercial<\/a>, who showed her commercial properties in Flatbush, including the current space where La Cachette du Coin is located.<\/p>\n Mishan ended up recommending his cousin, Ed Mishan, a contractor from Wharton Smith Construction Group<\/a>, for repairs once it became clear the space needed more work than initially planned.<\/p>\n Ed Mishan quoted more than Volmar had budgeted; however, he offered to come down if she paid the bulk of it upfront and covered the rest in installments. Volmar said she signed the contract and paid $250,000 of the $386,000 total.<\/p>\n Volmar agreed, paid the deposit, and broke ground in December 2024. She trusted Ed Mishan.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe always acted like a father to me,\u201d Volmar said. \u201cHe always gave me good advice.\u201d<\/p>\n Volmar planned to install a kitchen, dining and bar area.\u00a0<\/p>\n Part of Volmar\u2019s work with Ed Mishan also included setting up the restaurant\u2019s ventilation system. Boyden directed her to install the exhaust fan on a second-floor sub-roof beside the residential units.\u00a0<\/p>\n The two scopes of work proved difficult to separate. To install her ventilation system and grease trap, Volmar needed to break through the ceiling and under the floor, both areas Boyden had agreed to finish.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The lease gave Volmar six months rent-free, a common concession landlords give for spaces requiring extensive buildouts, and included a standard commercial provision for the tenant to resolve any mechanic\u2019s lien<\/a> within 30 days.<\/p>\n With rent abatements, property owners often ask for longer leases lasting at least three to five years. In this case, the lease stated that the clock started only after the landlord\u2019s work was \u201csubstantially completed\u201d or on the day the tenant began business operations, whichever occurred first.\u00a0<\/p>\n Volmar said Boyden\u2019s share of the work was substantially completed by September 2025, and that her six-month rent abatement should have run from then through March 2026.<\/p>\n As work on the restaurant wound down in September 2025, Boyden expected Volmar to start paying rent in July 2025. Volmar, however, pushed back. Her grace period, she said, hadn\u2019t begun yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n When she took over the part of the buildout work he was supposed to complete, she understood a rent abatement came with it. That work, she said, was supposed to be finished before her keys were in hand.\u00a0<\/p>\n They each hired lawyers and began litigation. The summer passed with no resolution.\u00a0<\/p>\n Then, on Nov. 5, Ed Mishan put the mechanic\u2019s lien on the building, a move Volmar believes was orchestrated by Boyden. She said Ed Mishan told her he\u2019s been pressured to sue her.\u00a0<\/p>\n Contractors typically use liens to pressure clients who\u2019ve defaulted on their payments. But Volmar had paid Ed Mishan his deposit, and they\u2019d verbally agreed to work out the rest in installments. Therefore, in her eyes, she had time to pay him the $100,000 owed.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ed Mishan\u2019s lien application is claiming $200,000, however, with the additional $100,000 reflecting change orders. Volmar disputes the amount and says he had not provided documentation of the change orders.<\/p>\n In any case, after the lien was filed, Ed Mishan stopped work on the restaurant.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Less than a week later, on Nov. 10, Boyden\u2019s lawyer Gregory Skiff, sent Volmar a letter giving her 30 days to resolve the case with Ed Mishan by paying the lien in full or face eviction.<\/p>\n It remains unclear whether he filed the lien to collect what he was owed by Volmar, or whether it was at Boyden\u2019s behest to give him grounds for an eviction order.<\/p>\n Neither Ed Mishan nor Skiff responded to requests for comment via email. Skiff also declined to comment in person at the courthouse.<\/p>\n Despite the setback, Volmar kept building, paying out of pocket to finish the work that Ed Mishan had not completed and opened La Cachette on Dec. 19.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, Volmar\u2019s attorney at the time, Robert Rosman, filed two lawsuits: one seeking to discharge the lien and another arguing that Volmar was not in breach of her lease and asking the court to prevent Boyden from terminating it.<\/p>\n Court records show Rosman missed his first court appearance. Without the lien being discharged, the second case unraveled. On March 2, a judge denied Volmar\u2019s Yellowstone injunction<\/a>, a legal mechanism that can temporarily preserve a commercial lease while a dispute is resolved.<\/p>\n Two weeks later, Boyden filed a holdover proceeding, seeking to have the lease declared terminated.<\/p>\n Volmar later hired the Spodek Law Group<\/a> to represent her.<\/p>\n Rosman did not respond to a request for comment sent by email.<\/p>\n In 2016, New York passed the Commercial Tenant Harassment Law<\/a> in an effort to level the playing field between small business owners and powerful corporate real estate owners, who would often use harassment to displace tenants, especially minority and immigrant tenants in gentrifying neighborhoods.\u00a0<\/p>\n Four years later, legislators added new protections through the Small Business Tenants Law<\/a>, mandating free legal support through the city\u2019s Small Business Services<\/a>.<\/p>\n In a phone interview, Nurse, who researches the displacement of minority business owners in Brooklyn, said commercial leases are generally more complicated, last longer and involve more money. Property owners can require tenants to perform more work than residential leases require, such as renovations or repairs \u2013 details that may be missed or negotiated unfavorably for a tenant when a lawyer representing the interests of the tenant is not involved.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In Volmar\u2019s case, she and her business partner, who asked not to be named for privacy reasons, read their commercial lease themselves, without a lawyer.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBlack entrepreneurs have to rely more on their internal capacities, which can be very exhausting,\u201d Nurse said. Minorities lack supportive networks where new business owners like Volmar could learn from those more experienced in their field, she added.<\/p>\n Systemic racism in access to funding and fair real estate terms also compounds the issue for minority-owned small businesses. Volmar said banks denied her loan applications, telling her she was too new and the business was too risky.<\/p>\n While Volmar admits she made rookie mistakes as a novice business owner, she believes the real estate professionals took advantage of her.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI just finished the space,\u201d Volmar said, after recounting how a broker came in early May to show her space to a client looking for a restaurant. \u201cHe wants to take it from me to rent it to another person for more money and he wants the general contractor to sue me on top of that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThese people, they don\u2019t have heart,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s because I\u2019m a woman and also I\u2019m a black woman and also I\u2019m an immigrant. They just think they can just rob me, take my life, my kids\u2019 life and make it theirs, [as though] they\u2019re entitled to everything.\u201d<\/p>\n Activist Imani Henry, founder of Equality for Flatbush<\/a>, sees Volmar\u2019s situation as a part of a larger pattern of racialized displacement.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not happenstance,\u201d Henry said. \u201cIt is a concerted effort to push out and displace largely black and brown tenants, homeowners, small businesses from New York City.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ahead of their June 16 hearing at Brooklyn Housing Court<\/a>, a proposal surfaced.<\/p>\n According to Volmar, the offer came through Eddie Mamiye, a listing agent with MOD Commercial Real Estate<\/a>. Mamiye said Boyden was willing to sell the restaurant for $2.5 million and help her secure a Small Business Administration<\/a> loan to finance the purchase.<\/p>\n Screenshot from Tri State Commercial\u2019s social media announcing the leasing of 625 Rogers Avenue to La Cachette du Coin, with brokers Morris Mishan and Eddie Keda credited.<\/p>\n City property records show Boyden\u2019s building increased in value from $500,000 in 2018, when he purchased the lot, to $2 million in 2025, after Volmar completed the buildout. However, the estimate does not appear to include residential units, which range from about $500,000 to $1.45 million, are sold out.<\/p>\n On MOD\u2019s site, the same space is listed for $2 million and advertised as a fully built-out restaurant.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to buy the restaurant,\u201d Volmar said, referring to the ground-floor space. \u201cI just want to continue my lease.\u201d<\/p>\n During the June hearing, Judge Ortiz called their case around 10 a.m..<\/p>\n At first, Gregory Skiff, Boyden\u2019s attorney, and Ralph Franco Jr., Volmar\u2019s attorney, told the judge that an offer to sell the restaurant to Volmar had been made. Skiff said his client doubted Volmar had the funds to complete the purchase and raised the outstanding lien as an obstacle.<\/p>\n The attorneys then moved to a conference room to continue negotiations. They later returned and asked the judge to set a new trial date to allow more time to work toward an agreement.<\/p>\n Ortiz agreed, and the clerk scheduled a trial for Aug. 25.<\/p>\n After the hearing, contractor Ed Mishan called Volmar\u2019s cellphone, asking her to meet to resolve the lien.\u00a0<\/p>\n Volmar later told The Haitian Times<\/em> the meeting did not produce a breakthrough. She said she offered a payment plan totaling $200,000 \u2014 $20,000 upfront and $5,000 per month for 36 months \u2014 which she said was $70,000 more than she believed she owed. She said Mishan declined her office after speaking with his son, a business partner and Boyden, the landlord.<\/p>\n \u201cHe said he\u2019s not going to remove the lien for that little money,\u201d Volmar said.<\/p>\n Since Mishan would not negotiate, Volmar said, her attorney plans to challenge the lien in court.<\/p>\n Despite both the lease and lien hanging over her head, Volmar plans on continuing business as usual.<\/p>\n \t\t\t<\/p>\n Overview: Eva Volmar, owner of La Cachette du Coin in Brooklyn, alleges that her landlord, broker and contractor mishandled her commercial lease and restaurant buildout, leaving her with mounting debt. As the dispute heads to court, Volmar says she believes she is being pushed out of the space she renovated so it can be leased […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/haitiantimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260514EVAV_01_542-1-1-scaled.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11991],"tags":[3987,35,5039,12011,1214,1226,216,9521,2694],"class_list":["post-32350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-haiti-news","tag-chef","tag-haitian","tag-landlord","tag-latest-news","tag-life","tag-million","tag-restaurant","tag-savings","tag-spent"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/haitiantimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260514EVAV_01_542-1-1-scaled.jpg",0,0,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/haitiantimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260514EVAV_01_542-1-1-scaled.jpg",0,0,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/haitiantimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260514EVAV_01_542-1-1-scaled.jpg",0,0,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/haitiantimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260514EVAV_01_542-1-1-scaled.jpg",150,150,false],"medium":["https:\/\/haitiantimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260514EVAV_01_542-1-1-scaled.jpg",300,300,false],"large":["https:\/\/haitiantimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260514EVAV_01_542-1-1-scaled.jpg",1024,1024,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/haitiantimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260514EVAV_01_542-1-1-scaled.jpg",1536,1536,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/haitiantimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260514EVAV_01_542-1-1-scaled.jpg",2048,2048,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/haitiantimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260514EVAV_01_542-1-1-scaled.jpg",370,265,false],"kava-thumb-s":["https:\/\/haitiantimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260514EVAV_01_542-1-1-scaled.jpg",150,85,false],"kava-thumb-s-2":["https:\/\/haitiantimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260514EVAV_01_542-1-1-scaled.jpg",230,230,false],"kava-thumb-m":["https:\/\/haitiantimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260514EVAV_01_542-1-1-scaled.jpg",400,400,false],"kava-thumb-m-vertical":["https:\/\/haitiantimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260514EVAV_01_542-1-1-scaled.jpg",370,500,false],"kava-thumb-m-2":["https:\/\/haitiantimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260514EVAV_01_542-1-1-scaled.jpg",570,450,false],"kava-thumb-l":["https:\/\/haitiantimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260514EVAV_01_542-1-1-scaled.jpg",1170,650,false],"kava-thumb-xl":["https:\/\/haitiantimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260514EVAV_01_542-1-1-scaled.jpg",1920,1080,false],"kava-thumb-masonry":["https:\/\/haitiantimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260514EVAV_01_542-1-1-scaled.jpg",600,999,false],"kava-thumb-justify":["https:\/\/haitiantimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260514EVAV_01_542-1-1-scaled.jpg",640,640,false],"kava-thumb-justify-2":["https:\/\/haitiantimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260514EVAV_01_542-1-1-scaled.jpg",1280,640,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"#RiseCelestialStudios","author_link":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/author\/ralph-c\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Haiti News<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Overview: Eva Volmar, owner of La Cachette du Coin in Brooklyn, alleges that her landlord, broker and contractor mishandled her commercial lease and restaurant buildout, leaving her with mounting debt. As the dispute heads to court, Volmar says she believes she is being pushed out of the space she renovated so it can be leased…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32350"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32352,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32350\/revisions\/32352"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
From raw space to welcome dining experience<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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The buildout begins<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Mechanic\u2019s lien escalates dispute<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Challenges facing minority business owners<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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A lease, a lien \u2014 and business as usual\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Related<\/em><\/h3><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"