Though the building it calls home won’t be demolished for months, 12th Ave’s Saba is being shown the door after a King County Superior Court judge upheld an unlawful detainer case against the Ethiopian restaurant whose fight against displacement has been championed by District 3 rep Kshama Sawant.

“We technically have a month left. But the judge read the lease differently,” Saba Teklegiorgis tells CHS. She says her mother’s restaurant has been in an unfair fight with the management company brought in to help push the tenant out by the property’s owners. Tactics, she says, have included claiming Saba had failed to pay its rent even though the restaurant found another way to make sure the landlord got its check.

“If they are within the law, I don’t know why they keep doing dirty things,” she said.

CHS first reported on the battle around owner Workie Wubushet’s restaurant last fall as Sawant took up the cause to “save Saba.”

Developer Alchemy Real Estate and Isola Homes are lined up to demolish the property and create a six-story, 289-unit apartment building with commercial space and 11 “Live-Work Units,” plus underground parking for 230 vehicles. The property has been under the ownership of a family trust but the developer is lined up to purchase the land. The 9,000 square-foot building Saba has called home dates to 1940. It is unlikely to qualify for landmarks protections, according to a City of Seattle assessment.

Teklegiorgis says the fight isn’t about staying at the restaurant’s longtime location but about giving the restaurant more time while displacement resources including financial support and help finding a new lease are lined up to assist.

In the meantime, she says, Saba remains open.

The eviction notice for Saba comes as Seattle is stepping up efforts to encourage owners with properties lined up for development to keep the buildings in use or make sure they don’t become neighborhood safety issues with squatters and drug use by increasing and expanding inspections and vacant building monitoring fees.

In response to the eviction notice, Sawant’s city council office issued a letter calling on Alchemy “to immediately rescind the eviction notice, and begin negotiations with Mrs. Wubushet and her family on what specific assistance you will provide to ensure the restaurant’s relocation to a suitable new site in the neighborhood.”

“This kind of unacceptable conduct comes on top of the systematic gentrification that’s facing working families and small businesses in District 3 and the city, while corporations like yours make profits,” the letter reads.”

CHS repeatedly reached out to a representative for Alchemy Real Estate about the situation with Saba and received no response.

Teklegiorgis, meanwhile, is asking people to sign a petition in support of the restaurant.

PLEASE HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE!
Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.