The owners of a Black-owned restaurant in East Atlanta say they are being forced out by the real estate firm that purchased a property housing their business earlier this year, pointing to unfair business practices and increasing gentrification around the district that has expelled longstanding Black communities and businesses.
King Shands and Brittney Wilson opened East Atlanta Treehouse on Flat Shoals Avenue in January.
From 2012 to 2021, Shands was the general manager of an event space called The Union, where EAT now operates.
In 2021, he took over the business from the previous owner and spent four years obtaining licenses and permits to bring his vision for EAT to life.
The restaurant and entertainment venue had just gotten on its feet earlier this year when Shands and co-owner Wilson learned Canvas Companies LLC had purchased several properties housing retailers and restaurants, including their own, in February.
Shortly after purchasing the portfolio, Canvas publicly indicated it would work to keep existing tenants in their spaces.
Shands and Wilson said that seemed like the case at first.
Both owners recalled when a Canvas representative told them they’d work with them, but they had to reapply to rent the unit they were currently occupying. That application included new lease terms informing Shands and Wilson that they had to adhere to a 75 percent rent increase.
Shands agreed to pay the increased rent. He and Wilson provided financial statements and records proving they made eight times more than the new rental rate, excluding cash earned.
Canvas Companies denied their application.
The firm reportedly told the owners that its lender, Colony Bank, decided the owners didn’t make enough money to stay on as tenants and indicated they needed to make about 13 times the rental rate to be considered viable candidates for a lease.
EAT owners said they never received this decision in writing, only verbally by a Canvas Companies agent.
Now, Canvas is giving Shands and Wilson until June 30 to vacate the premises. Both owners say the timeline to move is impractical, leaving them mere weeks to find a new space and secure business licenses and permits so they can continue operating in a different location. These procedures typically take months for business owners.
“It does feel a whole lot like discrimination. It does feel a whole lot like oppression. It does feel a whole lot like bigotry. It’s a lot of feelings,” Shands shared in an Instagram video. “At this moment right now, I have no clue what I’m going to do.”
Shands and Wilson have since launched an online petition to share their plea with the public and request that Canvas Companies LLC either issue them a new lease or give them more time to vacate the building.
“It’s absolutely ridiculous. It’s the story of being a minority business owner,” Wilson stated on Instagram. “You reach the finish line, and then they move the goal post. We understand what’s happening here. The area is being gentrified, and we don’t fit the bill of what they want over here.”
Shands and Wilson added that other Black-owned businesses in neighboring properties Canvas bought had opted to leave because of the increased rental rates.
A report by The National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) revealed that between 1980 and 2020, six Atlanta neighborhoods, including East Atlanta, underwent a drastic racial turnover, flipping from majority-Black to majority-white. Data shows that Atlanta as a whole experienced the most intense gentrification from 2000 to 2012.
Researchers say that without measures to ward off the worst effects of gentrification, communities suffer cultural erasure, lose their historical identities, and their businesses, community gathering spaces, and cultural landmarks are replaced with more generic or “high-end” alternatives.
Shands has served East Atlanta’s creative community for over a decade, either working in or running businesses that have helped the city’s independent artists, musicians, creators, and entrepreneurs find or expand their platforms.
“This is not about viability. This is about pushing us out,” Shands’ and Wilson’s petition reads. “Many minority entrepreneurs are systematically shut out of spaces where they could thrive—not because of lack of talent or vision, but because the standards set for entry are intentionally steep, selective, and often unattainable.”
East Atlanta Village caters to residents looking for after-hours restaurants and bars, with East Atlanta Treehouse being one of them.
Canvas managing partners haven’t specified what type of businesses they’d like to occupy their new properties, but did signal they are looking for retailers and business owners who operate during the daytime.
Atlanta Black Star has reached out to Canvas Companies LLC for comment.
