Hopetoun Tea Rooms goes into voluntary administration after legal dispute with Block Arcade
Melbourne’s Hopetoun Tea Rooms has gone into voluntary administration, but the owner is hoping to strike a deal to keep the iconic venue running.
VIC News
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The CBD’s iconic Hopetoun Tea Rooms has been put into voluntary administration following a legal dispute with the landlord of the Block Arcade.
A popular fixture of Collins St since 1892, the venue has not been open since March 19 due to the coronavirus shutdown.
However, the tea rooms’ future has been under a cloud for much longer since a tribunal ruled that owners Kelly and Kon Koutoumanos must pay the landlord $1.5 million over a failed expansion of the business.
Ms Koutoumanos said she was devastated that the much-loved tea rooms had been put into administration.
“I’m hoping that an agreement can be reached with the landlord to continue this fabulous business,” she told the Herald Sun.
“I will do everything that I can to bring it back to what it was, but it’s not going to be easy.”
Ms Koutoumanos said most of her 32 staff were receiving JobKeeper payments.
The legal row was over the Koutoumanoses plan to set up a new 200-seat eatery in the Block Arcade basement, while keeping the original tea rooms.
But the couple fell out with Block managing director Grant Cohen amid building issues and a loan agreement they negotiated through him.
In October, VCAT ruled that the Koutoumanoses must pay the arcade $1.5 million for the loan and other costs.
Mr Cohen said the Koutoumanoses could only keep trading if they paid their debt.
“This is one of Australia’s greatest and oldest businesses in what is probably the nation’s finest arcade,” he said.
“We want the business open as much as anybody - it ticks the boxes for someone to continue the history of Hopetoun Tea Rooms.”
The Cohen family - founders of the Godfreys vacuuming cleaning empire - bought the arcade for about $80 million in 2014.
It has been extensively refurbished since then.