Fitch Mountain Eddie's to Close Sunday

Popular Healdsburg eatery will be closing Sunday, according to relatives of restaurant owners Cathy and Raul Arteaga.

The Arteagas, who had a five-year lease with no option to renew at their current site, recently opened  Zocalos, a restaurant at 3120 Lakeville Hwy. in Petaluma.

John and Kim Lloyd, who own and the surrounding shopping center at Healdsburg Avenue and Dry Creek Road where Fitch Mountain Eddie's is located, have been the Arteagas' landlord during the term of the five-year lease.

In an interview this week, the Lloyds said they were planning to level the Fitch Mountain Eddie's building and expand their parking lot five years ago, when the lease for the prior tenant, restaurant owner Jim Mocci, expired.

Mocci had run the restaurant for about 12 years, Mocci said.

”I enjoyed our relationship with Big John’s and the Lloyd family," Mocci said this week. "We purchased all of our bread through them, a lot of their employees came and ate at our restaurant -- John was a great landlord."

When Mocci subsequently had an offer from the Arteagas to buy Fitch Mountain Eddie's, he approached the Lloyds about postponing their plans for the parking lot expansion and granting a five-year lease to the Arteagas, with no option to renew.

The Lloyds said they agreed to hold off on the parking lot plans for five years so that Mocci could sell the restaurant to the Artegas, who then built Fitch Mountain Eddie's into a highly successful and beloved local eatery.

said they would miss the restaurant greatly and were saddened it was going away.

John Lloyd, who was not available in December when the original articles were published, said the five-year lease with the Arteagas was planned with no option to renew because he intended to complete his parking lot expansion plans when the five years ended.

In addition, the Lloyds, who have been paying sewer and water fees at the restaurant site under the lease agreement with the Arteagas, said that Healdsburg sewer rates have increased substantially in the past few years, deeply cutting into any income from a lease on the building.

According to John Lloyd, current sewer fees for Fitch Mountain Eddie's are about $2,700 per month, more than two-thirds of the income from the $4,000-per-month rental payment on the lease.

According to Mocci, Fitch Mountain Eddie's got its name from the original owner, Eddie Stead, who owned the restaurant for about six months before selling it to Mocci.

“I want you to thank all the people that came and supported us the 12 years that we were there," Mocci said. "We had a lot of great customers.”