Ken Todd and Lisa Vanderpump are denying they owe unpaid rent on their infamous Pump Restaurant, asking for their former landlord’s $1 million lawsuit to be dismissed, according to new reports.
While Lisa Vanderpump is not directly named in the lawsuit, Ken Todd is and his company Pump LLC responded to the landlord’s lawsuit in recent days. 8949 Santa Monica Partners is suing for breach of contract and promissory fraud.
According to Radar Online, Todd initially agreed to pay $32,500 per month in rent for Pump Restaurant before that was increased to $42,500 in 2020 during the height of the pandemic.
“The landlord claimed Todd breached the lease by failing to pay rent and other charges totalling $250k,” reads the report from Radar. “Further, 8948 argued that Todd had failed to transfer the liquor license for the location after the lease was terminated.”
While the landlord claims the liquor license was to be transferred to his new tenant as per their agreement with Ken Todd, the former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star denies this fact and is asking a judge overseeing the case to dismiss it entirely.
According to the report, Ken Todd’s “acts and omissions were, at all times, justified, fair privileged, and undertaken in the good faith and commercially reasonable pursuit of legitimate business purpose.” Todd is accusing the landlord of negligence and other wrongful conduct which has contributed to “any injury it now suffers.”
Lisa Vanderpump announces Pump Restaurant is closing
As previously reported on TVDeets.com, Ken Todd and Lisa Vanderpump announced the closure of Pump Restaurant back in March 2023.
“It’s with heavy hearts that we announce that the lease at Pump Restaurant is expiring, and we will be closing its doors on July 5th, after 10 years of beautiful evenings under our olive trees,” the former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star said in a statement.
“While we have loved our time operating Pump, to take on another 10-year lease with a huge increase in rent by the landlords, is not something we are ready to commit to,” she continued. “After successfully running 37+ establishments for many years, this type of rent is untenable.”
She added, “We look forward to welcoming you all to TomTom & Sur in the months following! Thank you for the past decade of support, we have loved our staff, our patrons and our time together.”
According to the TMZ report, Lisa Vanderpump’s landlord was requesting $1 million in rent a year for PUMP, something Lisa and Ken clearly found unreasonable. The restaurant is well-known to Bravo fans having been featured on RHOBH many times over the years and serving as a key background in many scenes on Lisa’s spinoff, Vanderpump Rules.
