Huey's 24/7 Gets the Boot From the Wyndham Garden

Sunday night, a tipster informed Eater that Huey's 24/7 had only 48 hours to vacate the Wyndham Garden Hotel, but a call to the restaurant on Monday proved that the diner was in fact still operating. Well, hopefully they're fast when it comes to packing, because the rumor is true. According to New Orleans City Business reporter Ben Myers, Jason Doyle didn't even show up for his court date, well kind of...Per Meyers:

An eviction hearing in Orleans Civil District Court was briefly delayed Friday because the defendant, restaurateur Jason Doyle, was absent. Attorney Jane Booth, representing the owner of the Wyndham Garden Hotel, where Doyle opened a Huey's 24/7 Diner two months ago, told the judge she had seen Doyle outside the courtroom. A court employee bellowed Doyle's name down the hallway, but Doyle and his attorney were gone.

Strangeness. The hearing continued uncontested and now Doyle gets the boot, as he did for Press It Bistro also in the CBD about a month ago.

Doyle is still facing 14 judgments in nine states, mostly dealing with "violating contractual obligations, including those that provided him with upfront cash." Some of these judgments include:

· Two California judgments amounting to over 4.5 million in damages sought, which stem from money Doyle received upfront for opening Wine Lofts, which never happened.
· 10 of Doyle's restaurant/bar projects from 2009 to 2011 have judgments against Doyle personally alongside his business entities, including claims from developers in Cincinnati, Asheville, and Hampton, Virginia.
· Multimillion-dollar judgments against Doyle for lease violations in Asheville and Minneapolis, and judgments totaling more than $300,000 in two Tennessee cases
· $2.5 million judgment against Doyle, stemming from outfitted retail spaces for restaurants that never opened in Phoenix, Little Rock, and also Leawood, Kansas.

And, Ben Meyers reports, there's also this:

Two days after the Kansas lawsuit was filed, Doyle finalized the purchase of a 7,700-square-foot home in New Orleans' Lakewood neighborhood through a Texas entity. Nine months later, the home was sold to Franco Development, the same company facing lawsuits from the Mall of Louisiana and a New Orleans contractor, for $1.1 million, a $280,000 increase from February's sales price. Doyle personally signed all mortgage and sale documents on behalf of the buyer in both transactions.

No word on if a Huey's 24/7 is still planning to open in Birmingham, Alabama, but recent plans for a Wine Loft to open in the former Bouche space on Tchoup are now off.

· Latest Doyle Eviction Adds to History of Court Cases [City Business, sub req.]
· The Huey's Saga [-ENOLA-]