Riko’s Pizza wins eviction bid in Connecticut court ruling

A pizzeria franchisor has fended off an eviction attempt in its hometown of Stamford, with a Connecticut Superior Court judge describing a lengthy delay by a landlord in serving a notice for additional amounts claimed on its lease as “inexcusable.”

Riko’s Pizza has locations in Connecticut in Stamford, Darien, Norwalk and Fairfield, as well as in New York, Massachusetts and Florida. The chain has built a fan base for its bar-style thin-crust pizza, including a hot-oil variety.

In a memorandum of decision, Judge John Cirello objected to building owner TPW Partners’ deferred request for additional payments above base rent to cover water, city taxes and other fees. Cirello ruled that Riko’s was “substantially in compliance with the lease agreement” and that an option it had exercised for a five-year lease extension would remain in full force and effect.

Attorneys representing TPW Partners could not immediately be reached late Wednesday afternoon to comment on the court’s ruling and whether the company would appeal.

Riko’s has about 30 employees at the 886 Hope St. location, one of two in Stamford, along with a newer restaurant at 2010 W. Main St. near the Greenwich line.

In his ruling, Cirello cited the legal doctrine of laches, which allows a defendant to seek relief in cases where a plaintiff unreasonably delays filing a claim for amounts owed.

“Essentially, that’s a legal defense for a claim that says, ‘If you sleep, you lose,’” John Cassone, a partner at the Stamford law firm Crone & Cassone, which represented Riko’s, said in an interview with CT Insider on Wednesday. ‘If you sit on your rights you can lose your rights – and in this case the court said the landlord never sent them an invoice for the extra rent.

“Base rent was paid promptly,” Cassone added. “At Riko’s, their business is run like a finely tuned machine, and they pay their bills.”

In court, Riko had testified that it had offered to pay half of the water costs for the building, which has apartments on the upper floors that share the building’s water meter. That offer was rejected by TPW Partners, who wanted Riko to get the water costs and also the city taxes, which Riko’s had rejected because taxes were never specified as a cost in the original lease.

In March, Riko’s co-owner Luigi Cardillo said in court testimony that TPW Partners only had an “estimate” of actual water consumption because they had not been taking meter readings on a regular schedule.

“It doesn’t spit out a ticket like the New York Stock Exchange,” Cardillo said, according to a court transcript. “It rolls and rolls and rolls depending on how many gallons of water goes through it. So if it doesn’t get read, you don’t get any data.”

At the same hearing, Prakash Wadhwani, director of TPW Partners, said he understood the lease agreement as “the responsibility was on the tenant, on Riko”, in his words to arrange adequate meters and keep records.

Riko’s has demonstrated that it has never missed a base rent payment since 2016, including during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when some commercial tenants sought deferrals or waivers from their landlords.

At the March hearing, Cardillo said the company originally occupied the Hope Street space temporarily to test a new pizza oven, then decided to make the space permanent once it became available. Cardillo said it cost at least $600,000 to renovate the space for Riko’s, describing the process as “a very difficult build” due to the building’s previous condition.

“We totally changed the presence of the building on the street,” Cardillo said, as quoted in the court transcript. “We created something that stood out. You know, when you drove by, you said, ‘wow, what is that?'”

Includes previous reporting by Paul Schott.