Just days after the Bay Area hospitality group behind LB Steak and Left Bank Brasserie abruptly shuttered all seven of its restaurants, a merchant cash advance company sued the group for around $2.4 million.
Samson MCA LLC filed the lawsuit against Vine Dining Enterprises Inc. (the company behind the Vine Hospitality restaurant group), its related restaurant companies and CEO Alistair Levine in New York’s Erie County Supreme Court on July 1. The lawsuit alleges that on March 19, Vine entered into an agreement to sell Samson MCA the right to collect $2.345 million from its restaurants’ future sales. In exchange for an upfront payment, Vine allegedly agreed to send Samson 8% of the money it received from sales until the full $2.345 million amount had been reached. The amount of the upfront payment is not specified in the complaint.
The hospitality group allegedly paid Samson about $469,000 before stopping the payments, according to the lawsuit. Samson is seeking the alleged unpaid balance, around $1.876 million, plus attorneys fees of more than half a million dollars…