He said he doesn’t blame the city, noting that it’s not the city’s job to pick and choose which business ends up on the spot. Which was, frankly, very nice of them to do. “I had several people call me and tell me they wrote letters and said, ‘We don’t want another Starbucks.’. Neighbors had plenty to say about the switch from the nearly 50-year-old Foster’s to a Starbucks, Beiderwell said. While landlords cut tenants lots of breaks on their rents when restaurants were suffering during the height of the pandemic, times are moving on.Īs leases expire, some landlords are raising rents to market value, an increase that not every business can afford. The commercial business market has experienced some turmoil in recent months as the economy recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic. The landlord declined to comment to The Bee.

“It’s David versus Goliath, and Goliath is going to win this one,” Beiderwell said.

The restaurant has been at the site since 1976. The lease for Foster’s Freeze had expired months ago, and the restaurant was operating on a month-to-month lease. The City of Fresno has approved the conditional-use permit Starbucks filed to majorly remodel the existing restaurant into a Starbucks and add a drive-thru. “We’re thinking that it’s almost going to be a party,” said Don Beiderwell, with so many people planning to stop by and wish them well. One of the franchisees who owns this Foster’s Freeze and several others in town said Thursday that he’d received notice that the fast food restaurant must leave. Now it’s official: The Foster’s Freeze will close. The fate of the Foster’s Freeze restaurant near Palm and Bullard avenues in Fresno has been up in the air for months as Starbucks filed paperwork to open a coffee shop in the rented building.

Fostering finances