Monday, December 28, 2020
The owners of a popular Providence restaurant — recognized by Yelp as one of 2020’s “Top 100 Places to Eat” in the United States — are now embroiled in a bitter and public fight over the future of the business.
Becca Brady and Tiffany Ting of Hometown Cafe & Poké Bar in Providence are currently in a legal battle -- and war of words.
The duo had originally started as a food truck before finding a brick-and-mortar location on Camp Street in 2018, and earning national accolades.
Last week, a restaurant employee has orchestrated a GoFundMe campaign to back one of the owners against the other.
Hometown Poke's Heather Fernandez started the crowdfunding effort that as of Monday has raised over $21,000 to “save” the business — to provide money to Brady in a legal battle against Ting.
“As some of you may know there has been a legal battle in the past six months for the future of Hometown. Hometown Poke originally had two founders, Becca Brady and Tiff Ting,” wrote Fernandez on the GoFundMe campaign page. “Throughout the entire time the store has been open Tiff has largely been absent and seemingly uninterested in running the business while Becca has been working hard to create a thriving and community-driven business.”
“As of this past Friday (12/18) the judge ruled to dissolve the business and it is likely going to an auction where Tiff will do as much as she can to either win ownership of the company or get as much money as possible,” she continued.
See Crowdfunding Campaign HERE
On Sunday, when reached for comment, Brady said she could not speak about the situation — and Fernandez said Brady had no involvement with the fundraising effort.
“I sign everything with my name and said it was on behalf of myself and staff,” said Fernandez. “The money would be going to buy Hometown as a business in the auction to keep current management, which is Becca. If we do not win the auction I will inform everyone who has donated we will be using any money to start a new concept with Becca at the helm and if people want to be refunded they can.”
“My staff are the ones who started the GoFundMe, so you’d have to reach out to them for details on the fundraiser,“ said Brady when reached for comment. “I’ve been told that I’m not allowed to speak about the current litigation.”
Co-Owner Ting on Record
Ting, however, weighed in with her take on the situation.
“If [Brady] won't agree to a private auction by [January] 4th, the judge will force us into a public auction where we'll have to bid against anyone that wants the business,” said Ting, when asked for comment by GoLocal.
“Becca and I had a really bad fight back in May and she locked me out of the business operations email, accounting, payroll, schedules etc. I convinced her to give me access back and go to therapy which we did for 4 weeks,” said Ting. “Becca decided she just wanted the business to herself and me and the therapist tried to convince her to work it through but she refused.”
“After that, we both locked each other out of different parts of the business and Becca opened a new bank account and took all the money from the business,” Ting continued. “She told me to get a lawyer and our lawyers tried to mediate for us and get us to shared access. Every time we shared access, Becca ended up locking me out until I was locked out of every single aspect of the business.”
“I then learned that Becca spent a huge chunk of the business money on her personal taxes which is a huge accounting no-no and illegal,” said Ting. “When I confronted her about it, she said that the company accountant told her it was okay (we later deposed him and he said it was definitely not okay). Anyways, I didn't want to give up the business, so my lawyer told me to make an offer to buy it from Becca since we were ultimately headed down that route.”
Ting said Brady hired a new lawyer, and told employees that she was in charge — and that Ting was trying to harm the business.
“She's used these 6 months that I've been locked out and kept away from the store to craft a sad story saying that she's the rightful owner and does everything and I've been absent and I'm trying to shut down the business and she's trying to save it and protect them,” said Ting. “She started accusing me of all this ‘wrongdoing’ and told the employees that they can make a case to the judge for her to be the only owner.”
“I just hope that people will one day realize there's so much more to the story than the lies Becca's been telling everybody. Even this GoFundMe has hurt the business and people are now calling us out for asking for buyout money in a pandemic and calling us gentrifiers,” said Ting. “I'm obviously upset because I think so many people that donate think they're saving a small business rather than just giving Becca buyout money.”
"It's fine to ask family and friends to give you money for a business but to put a misleading 'fundraiser' on the internet and utilize words like bipoc, lqbtq, and covid to get people to donate to something that has nothing to do with those actual causes is just wrong," she said.
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