Popular Sandwich Shop Faces Eviction

By Ted Andersen

Fans of Ike’s Place, who often wait in hour-long lines on the street for a beloved artisan sandwich at the 16th and Sanchez streets hub, could disappear from the corner as the property owner has sought legal action to oust the shop.

Ike Shehadeh, San Francisco native and 32-year-old owner of the popular Ike’s Place, has received an eviction lawsuit from building owner Denman S. Drobisch.

“I’m actually in shock and disbelief,” Shehadeh said. “I can’t believe that something like this can actually happen.”

The owner’s lawyer, Arlene Helfrich, did not return phone calls seeking comment regarding the eviction proceedings.

The hole in the wall has become a Castro phenomenon through a host of creatively named sandwiches, freshly baked bread, more than 2,000 reviews on Yelp and a television appearance on the Travel Channel’s “Man vs. Food” show. The shop can serve over 1,000 customers a day, and employs 53 people, including family.

Fame and success are where the trouble started for Ike’s. The neighbors living upstairs, Vince Blaskovich and Paul Quin, have complained about the heavy traffic and the garbage and have hired attorney Julian Lastowski but have not filed suit. Lastowski has written letters demanding that Ike’s Place pay thousands of dollars to his clients for disrupting their lives or pay to relocate them. Shehadeh would not specify how much the demands called for but called the sum “a lot.”

“They put out a lot of demands,” said Shehadeh, adding that he has lost over $300,000 in revenue by closing early in the previous 48 weeks to accommodate the tenants’ demands. “I feel like we met a lot of them. But it appears to me that what we can do or will do or ever will be able to do won’t be enough.”

Lastowski said his clients don’t want to file a lawsuit but feel as though their quality of life has been disrupted. He cited frequent patron garbage, deliveries blocking their homes, order shouting on the street, odors from the restaurant, and permitting violations all as issues.

“There’s no criticism of the success. The problem is they haven’t followed the law,” Lastowski said. “They didn’t have hoods put in the kitchen to stop the smells from permeating my client’s apartment. They weren’t allowed to cook with the permit they had. There were no public hearings. … This is my clients’ home. They have a fixed income. They can’t afford to rent in the city in a unit that’s not [under] rent control.”

Shehadeh said that after applying for the hood installation permits in January, the neighbors and landlord fought him against putting it in.

Long lines often reaching the Volvo Centrum shop up 16th Street haven’t soured store manager Martin Rockberg.

“We’re pretty much good neighbors but the line gets long sometimes,” he said. “The only problem I have is some of the customers parking in my driveway and blocking me out. But when the line gets really long, we tell them to double up the register and they usually do.”

Frequent customer and Castro resident John Rose claimed that while some patrons double park to pick up their order, the line is nothing particularly harmful. “Everybody is always very well behaved.”
Since opening in 2007, according to Shehadeh, Ike’s Place has donated to almost every school within a five-block radius as well as the local library. “In 2008, I donated more money to San Francisco causes than I made myself,” he said.

Opening its first store in the Castro, Ike’s Place has since expanded to Redwood City and has a store planned for the Stanford campus. Shehadeh said that as far as relocating the Castro shop, “the economics are not there.”

Copyright 2010 Castro Courier