Abbotsford Convent ordered to return keys to cafe after legal stoush

Abbotsford Convent must hand back control of a Japanese restaurant to the operator it evicted this month, after the restaurateur won a legal reprieve, until his case goes to mediation.

To contest the urgent application brought before the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal on Monday, the not-for-profit Abbotsford Convent Foundation deployed chief executive Justine Hyde, its head of governance, a barrister and two solicitors. This convent team, however, was defeated by self-represented restaurateur Joe Shin.

On May 1, the convent evicted Shin from his Kappaya Japanese restaurant, changing the locks and stationing security guards at the restaurant to prevent him re-entering. Shin’s company also operates the convent’s bakery, where he is also facing eviction as the convent looks to bring in a new operator.

Shin took the convent to VCAT, which reversed his eviction from Kappaya, ordering the convent to change the locks back and allow Shin access by 11am on Tuesday.

Shin has run the Japanese restaurant since 2016, and the Convent Bakery since 2018. Relations between him and the convent have crumbled, which Shin claims is the result of his business being outspoken over issues surrounding its leases during the pandemic.

VCAT deputy president Richard Wilson, sitting with senior member Holly Nash, ruled that Shin should be allowed back in, pending mediation over the dispute next month.

Shin was evicted after a dispute over outdoor furniture, which also involved his liquor licence. The restaurateur told VCAT the dispute over outdoor furniture and his liquor licence – which have remained largely unchanged since 2016 – were an excuse to drive him out.

In delivering the ruling on Monday, Wilson, the VCAT deputy president, noted there was a “serious issue to be tried” on whether a dispute over outdoor furniture was legally sufficient to justify terminating an underlying lease.

Shin argues that while his lease at Kappaya expired in December, under historical Victorian COVID-19 commercial tenancy regulations landlords were required to negotiate lease extensions with businesses to compensate for hundreds of days of lost trading during the pandemic.

Shin said the foundation’s use of multiple lawyers and a barrister would not have come cheaply, questioning whether this was how the charity should be spending money.

He said he was left with about a week’s worth of food trapped inside the Japanese restaurant when the locks were changed 18 days ago.

Five staff members at the restaurant were also let go as there was no work for them for the foreseeable future. Shin said he would now try to hire them back.

A spokeswoman for the Abbotsford Convent Foundation said on Monday night that the decision to seek to terminate the Kappaya lease reflected a range of factors, including compliance and long-term planning for the precinct.

She said the convent had to manage the site with strong governance principles and balance commercial sustainability with broader social purpose, across its more than 130 leaseholders.

“The Abbotsford Convent Foundation will continue to engage constructively with the tenant as it considers the implications of the VCAT decision,” she said.

Yarra Council Mayor Stephen Jolly said Monday’s tribunal decision was “on one level a bog-standard property dispute, but it’s also sort of symbolic” of a wider community feeling that the convent had drifted from its radical roots.

“The convent was won through a picket line and a long-term protest in the late 1990s and early 2000s,” he said.

“It’s been turned into a sort of headquarters for the professional managerial classes – it’s just designers and consultants now. If you go there now with no money in your pocket, you know, you feel like you’ve gatecrashed somebody’s party you weren’t invited to.”

He described the decision as a “wake-up call” for the convent chief executive and the board to shift direction.

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