@jseattle just saw this on the door of By The Pound? pic.twitter.com/rdF7ouTRWA — Simon Good (@simonthegood) November 20, 2018

There’s a bigger mess than the construction reportedly underway at the shuttered By the Pound deli and bar.

A King County Sheriff’s eviction notice has gone up on the venue’s locked E Olive Way door. Court records show the companies behind the project owe more than $75,000 in unpaid rent — plus daily rent of $317.24 for every day after Halloween they didn’t vacate the premise, and more than $1,600 in attorney’s fees and hundreds more in costs.

Inside By the Pound

It’s a pricey menu.

CHS has reached out to Jayme Stocker of Allied Global Marketing who has been representing the ownership with media but haven’t yet heard back.

The King County Superior Court judgment adds to the issues behind the short-lived deli plus speakeasy venture as its ownership has said it intends to reopen as a straightforward bar.

According to state corporation records, BTP Seattle is registered to business partners Rodney Wang, Shervin Roohparvar, and Katherine Benjamin.

In September, CHS reported on the surprise shuttering of By the Pound after less than a year of business at the ambitious venture that created a secret bar behind its front counter deli. We noted around $11,000 in unpaid state taxes at the time but the issues with landlord Equity Residential Management were going on outside of the public record.

According to an agreement included in the court records from the lawsuit, the parties agreed on a payment plan that would have the business paying $2,196 in owed rent on a weekly basis starting in September. The defendants failed to make the required payments and the dispute landed in court.

CHS visited By the Pound in its first weeks in late 2017 as the high aspirations for a deli-fronted, modern-day speakeasy took shape in a long-empty space formerly home to Bleu Bistro’s Grotto.

The club and bar-focused F2T Hospitality management company owned by Ali Olyaie behind the By the Pound project has also been maintaining an office on E Olive Way just up the block from the deli and bar. That company also opened the Alchemy cocktail bar and its restaurant sibling Vine and Spoon in West Seattle. A second company registered to Olyaie’s wife Jennifer Perry is also a defendant in the case.

In September after CHS reported on the abrupt closure, By the Pound ownership said the plan was to reopen this fall. “Because of demand, the team has chosen to physically expand our bar concept and utilize more of the space to facilitate more guests being able to experience our product and couldn’t remain open while doing it,” the company said in a statement. The plan then was to open in a few weeks.

BECOME A 'PAY WHAT YOU CAN' CHS SUBSCRIBER TODAY: Support local journalism dedicated to your neighborhood. SUBSCRIBE HERE. Join to become a subscriber at $1/$5/$10 a month to help CHS provide community news with NO PAYWALL. You can also sign up for a one-time annual payment.