I wrote about the closing of the Court Towers Deli in April 2008. Since then, I’ve watched the ground-level space sit vacant on Pennsylvania Avenue, a block from Baltimore County Circuit Court in Towson. Occasionally I would see people inside, scoping the place out. I heard rumors that a restaurant would be opening last fall, but nothing came to pass.

The restaurant was and is a topic of conversation of the people I see in and around the courthouse. So it gives me great pleasure to report a sign I saw on the space’s front door Monday:

Perring Place Express Deli

Tentative Opening Date:

Monday, Sept. 14th, 2009, 7 a.m.

New window treatments are already being mounted inside, a quick search online reveals the deli is already listed. The name suggests a spin-off of Perring Place in Parkville.

After 18 months of wondering and waiting, I’ll believe the deli is open when I see it, but I’ll keep you posted. 

Mother Jones magazine has a fascinating article in its March/April issue about people who open franchise businesses, then find out that the franchisor has not been entirely up front with them. The story focuses on an Annapolis couple, Deborah Williams and Richard Welshans, who opened a Coffee Beanery in 2003.

According to the story:

The couple hadn’t fully appreciated that Coffee Beanery, like many franchise operators, makes money selling franchises and gear, not coffee. They started getting bills far in excess of what they believed they’d signed up for. There was surveillance equipment, a music system, an obsolete, $14,000 lighting system. The ice machine the company sent was big enough to supply several restaurants, Williams says. Then there was the faulty $8,000 pastry display case, and a cash register so buggy that it sometimes forced them to close for days. In Coffee Beanery’s initial documentation, Welshans and Williams allege, it also failed to disclose a gift-card program and a Pepsi contract that were later imposed. If the couple refused any of it, the company could sue them for franchise violation. “We were losing money hand over fist,” Williams recalls.

The couple was financially ruined.

When they sued Coffee Beanery in federal district court in Maryland, the company got the case moved to Michigan, where it is based. There, a judge looked at the “fine print” of their franchise contract, which committed the franchisees to settle disputes by arbitration, and sent the case to an arbitrator.

The arbitrator found for Coffee Beanery, attributing the couple’s problems with their store to their own inexperience, and ordered them to pay more Read the rest of this entry »