An award-winning but embattled Boston restaurateur has agreed to a legal settlement with the city that will allow her to sell her remaining restaurants, but still require her to pay about $1.7 million from more than a decade’s worth of back taxes.
In a settlement order filed in Suffolk County Superior Court this week, Barbara Lynch agreed to hold any funds from the sale of her businesses in escrow until the outstanding city taxes are paid. Lynch herself and her officers and investors will not receive any money from the businesses until the debt is paid.
The city filed a lawsuit against Lynch and her seven restaurants last month, saying she had failed to pay personal property taxes continuously since as early as 2011, depending on the business. The business that had the most recent history of regular payments was the South End’s Stir, which had stopped paying personal property taxes in 2017.
According to court documents, Lynch made one tax payment for each restaurant in August 2021, but otherwise has not made any payments in years.
Lynch opened her first Boston restaurant, No. 9 Park on Beacon Hill, in 1998 and quickly joined the ranks of the city’s most highly acclaimed chefs. She eventually operated seven restaurants within the Lynch Collective in Boston and one in Gloucester and has won multiple James Beard Awards, among other honors.
In April 2023, the Boston Globe and New York Times published stories detailing alleged abuse and toxic work environments at Lynch’s restaurants, which she has denied. She is currently being sued by former employees who say she withheld tips during the pandemic, which she has also denied.
In September 2023, Lynch closed Stir and The Butcher Shop, according to court documents. In January 2024, she announced the closure of her three Fort Point restaurants, Drink, Sportello and Menton.
Her Gloucester restaurant, The Rudder, only operated for just over a year, closing its doors in October, according to Boston.com.
At the same time The Rudder closed, Lynch announced she would close her remaining restaurants, with No. 9 Park set to close at the end of the year and later reopen under new ownership. A closing date has not been announced for her final restaurant, B&G Oysters.
The city filed the lawsuit weeks after the announcement, saying each business was behind on taxes, ranging from $6,997.14 for Stir to $536,737.29 for No. 9 Park.
Lynch Collective COO Lorraine Tomlinson-Hall told WBUR that the restaurant group was “blindsided” by the lawsuit and that they had attempted to communicate with the city when they received the final notice letters in January, but had received no response.
A city spokesperson told WBUR that the Boston tax office “takes every step” to let taxpayers know about outstanding balances, and an attorney for the city said they had no choice but to pursue legal action.
Initially, the city had sought to stop the sale of the restaurants, but if the new settlement is approved by a judge, the transactions will be able to go through, preserving more than 60 jobs at No. 9 Park and B&G Oysters.
“We are pleased we can now proceed with securing the future of both No. 9 and B&G restaurants and most importantly the dozens of jobs within those entities,” Tomlinson-Hall told the Boston Globe this week. “We have encountered a very difficult month, after the initial court filing, with vendors understandably worried upon reading the alarming headlines.”