Eric Silverstein Has Three Businesses, and Three Different Rent Situations

Eric Silverstein at the 2017 Austin Food And Wine Festival (photo by John Anderson)

Running three hospitality businesses in Austin during the COVID-19 pandemic is already a complicated situation, but when it comes to keeping up with property costs like rent, Eric Silverstein is dealing with three unique scenarios.

Silverstein, founder of The Peached Tortilla, Bar Peached, and Peached Social House, explained: “Our landlord has requested that we pay full rent downtown at Bar Peached for the month of April. We are not operational and fully closed the location temporarily. The landlord has offered to defer base rent for May and amortize that cost over the remainder of the lease. Either way, we are going to take a big hit in terms of paying rent for a building we weren't allowed to operate out of.” (Silverstein paid the rent for April.)

Meanwhile, negotiations with the landlords of properties that house his other two businesses resulted in better terms. He said, “At our Burnet location, we've reached an agreement to just cover NNNs” – also called triple net, this includes property expenses like real estate taxes, building insurance, and maintenance – “and then pay a percentage of our sales as rent. This was a very fair deal.” As for Social House, Silverstein’s landlord is allowing him to postpone April rent as they work out details for the future. Silverstein added, “They are being fair.”