A "For Rent" sign hangs on the locked door of Thayer Street's now-defunct Italian cafe Roba Dolce, which closed last month after the eviction of owner Nino DeMartino. Two weeks after the closure, the cafe's future remains uncertain.
In a telephone interview, DeMartino said the possibility of resuming business in the 900-square-foot space is "very, very small."
The cause of the eviction, filed on Feb. 16 in Rhode Island's Sixth District Court, was negligence of four months of rental payments.
"What happened is not intentionally done," DeMartino said. "It happened because of circumstances."
A representative from the property's landlord, New York-based real estate company Stonehenge Partners, Inc., declined to comment on the eviction or the current status of the property.
Starting last November, DeMartino said he saw a dramatic decline in the cafe's profit.
"The money wouldn't come in anymore," he said. "The drop in revenues was about 23 percent."
Still, DeMartino said he hoped the business would recuperate. He tried to introduce new items to the menu and hoped that the limited liquor license, which he attained three weeks prior to the eviction, would help attract different crowds.
But these efforts came too late, he said.
DeMartino and his partner, Massimo Battista, had signed a contract with Roba Dolce Corporation for up to eight years and took over the retail store in November 2007. They paid a monthly rent of about $5,000 to the corporation, which then paid the landlord.
"The rent was high. Expenses were high," DeMartino said. "What we made was not enough to sustain all the expenses to operate."
But Roba Dolce is not the only business experiencing economic problems. A neighboring store's manager, who wished to remain anonymous, said profits are declining.
"Less students are coming to shop. Store owners are hurting," the manager said. "Shoppers are hurting, too. They (have) less money to spend."
Since he opened the cafe, DeMartino said one of his accomplishments was improving business from when he took over - in the first year, he said the cafe saw a 31-percent increase in profit.
The idea for the cafe was to add something unique on the street, DeMartino said. Even in the face of the troubling economy and declining revenues, he said, "We
had tried and tried."
"On a person level, I'd like to continue on the business," he said. "If (it's) not possible, (it's) not possible."
DeMartino, who is trying to come to terms with the eviction and watching the market closely, said he may consider relocating his business.
