LYNNWOOD – Alderwood mall shoppers hoping to nosh on Ivar’s fish and chips will be out of luck in a few weeks.
A decision not to renew the lease for Ivar’s fish bar has left a bad taste among Ivar’s executives and customers who are discovering the news.
“We’re starting to get questions already,” said Kirsten Wlaschin, director of marketing at Ivar’s Seattle headquarters.
Dave Fechter, director of operations for Ivar’s Seafood Bars, said the company has done well over the past 10 years at its location in Alderwood’s food court.
That included the period when the mall was undergoing a massive renovation and expansion in 2003 and 2004. That project enlarged the food court and added several sit-down restaurants to the mall, including P.F. Chang’s China Bistro and McGrath’s Fish House.
“The mall told us to ‘hang in there’ during its construction when business was understandably slow,” Fechter said in an e-mailed announcement about the seafood bar’s closure. “We never dreamed that General Growth Properties, the mall’s owner, would not renew our lease.”
Wlaschin said Ivar’s has to be out of the food court by mid-February, though a specific closing date hasn’t been set.
Erika Koehler, a spokeswoman at Alderwood’s management office, said only that the decision was a “leasing issue.”
Wlaschin said she’d been told the mall chose not to renew the lease because of “an exclusive agreement with another seafood restaurant.”
Before closing at the mall, Ivar’s plans to offer customers coupons for a free meal at other Ivar’s locations along Highway 99 in Lynnwood. The 10 employees at the mall location will be offered jobs at one of the chain’s other outlets as well, Fechter said.
Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
