Chocolate Shoppe, which has six retail locations in Madison, Fitchburg and Middleton, sued after it said D Port changed the locks on the Atwood location, keeping it from getting into the building to open for business on Oct. 2. The Atwood location, which has no indoor seating, is seasonal.

Gingras said the “handwriting was on the wall” since a hearing on Oct. 9 before Dane County Circuit Judge Peter Anderson, who left in place a temporary restraining order he had issued on Oct. 4 and asked the two sides to work out the dispute.

At the hearing, Anderson said leases in perpetuity, which Chocolate Shoppe said it had with the building’s previous owner, are generally not favored by law, though he added, “I’m not saying it couldn’t happen.”

Anderson had also told D Port to seek a formal eviction, telling the company’s owners that courts generally don’t like “self-help” evictions.