LEBANON — A sign appeared in the parking lot of Lucky’s Coffee Garage last week advertising not espresso drinks or freshly baked biscuits but the building.
The sign was from Ledgeworks, Mike Davidson’s Lebanon-based real estate company, from which Lucky’s owner Deb Shinnlinger has been leasing the 1 North Park St. property since 2017.
Its arrival came amid ongoing negotiations between Shinnlinger and Ledgeworks about the cost of rent for the property, which the real estate company plans to raise by 60% when Shinnlinger renews her lease next year.
“This increase impacts so many lives in the Upper Valley, not just Lucky’s. The precedent it would set for all other businesses hoping to make a home here would be untenable,” Shinnlinger said in an email.
Negotiations between Shinnlinger and Ledgeworks have been ongoing for years.
After Shinnlinger renewed her first five-year lease in 2022, her rent remained the same. Then around 2023, Ledgeworks attempted to raise the rent by “over 30%,” which she refused, she said.
In November, Ledgeworks presented Shinnlinger with a prospective lease that stipulated that the new rent for the space would be $7,300 per month, a 60% increase from what she was paying. As “a concession,” she began to pay an additional 20% on what she was already paying, she said in an email, but Ledgeworks is still insisting on the full 60% increase.
On top of the rent increase, the proposed lease also includes “very unreasonable terms,” Shinnlinger said. Among them was giving Ledgeworks the right to relocate Lucky’s, which has 20 employees, to a “like-kind” space that’s owned by the company, the draft lease stated. Under the terms presented, Ledgeworks would have to provide Lucky’s with 60 days notice, and Shinnlinger would have 90 days to find her own alternative if she didn’t want to relocate to the Ledgeworks-selected property.
As a workaround, Shinnlinger, who lives in Canaan, offered to purchase the property, which the city has assessed at $500,000, from Ledgeworks at “market value,” but was turned down, she said.
Davidson was unavailable for comment on Tuesday because he was “booked solid” until the evening, he said in an email.
While Davidson and Shinnlinger are now at odds over Lucky’s future, their once collaborative relationship helped the care come into being.
Davidson purchased the property — then Roy’s Auto Service, which had been around since the 1950s — and he and Shinnlinger set about transforming it into the coffee shop, the Valley News reported in 2017. While Davidson handled renovations to the exterior, Shinnlinger covered the interior build-out, including putting in countertops, two new floors and replacing the garage doors, all of which came to about $150,000, Shinnlinger said.
Since those early days, Lucky’s with its fox-themed ephemera and specialty espresso drinks, has developed a strong following.
“It’s such a huge asset to the community,” said Greg Leibon while waiting for his oat milk latte, which came to $6.25 before tax, at the cafe last Friday.
A mathematician and entrepreneur, Leibon, 55, visits Lucky’s a couple times a week to shake off the solitude of working from home, where part of his job involves launching small data science companies.
He lives in Orford, which can be a “very lonely town,” and the familiar faces at Lucky’s offer a welcomed antidote, he said. Leibon has even met someone else who works remotely, and the two will sometimes share a table together.
A few feet away on the same afternoon, Kirsten Ward, of West Lebanon, finished up lunch with her husband and their 8-year-old daughter, Thea.
Ward said she tried her first ever cup of coffee at Lucky’s: a cappuccino, purchased around 2020.
The “toasted, nutty flavor” of the espresso is what’s kept her coming back for more, she said. She and her family stop by Lucky’s a couple times a week, sometimes after Thea’s piano lessons at Upper Valley Music Center, which lies a short walk from Lucky’s, across Colburn Park.
“It’s a nice treat to do as a family,” Ward said.
The possibility of Lucky’s closing in its current location struck her as “a travesty and a tragedy,” she said.
There’s still another year left on Lucky’s lease. After that, Shinnlinger is open to relocating to a different property in Lebanon, but she’d much prefer to stay in the garage.
“It’s been eight years of a really great community, and so I really want to make it work,” she said.
On Tuesday, a window at Lucky’s bore a message to the cafe’s customers and a response to Ledgework’s sign: “Don’t believe everything you read. Lebanon is our home. We love you all.”