A month after opening to rave reviews, Fat Stax burger joint in Carleton, Michigan sits dark and cleaned out, its owner Barb Little preparing to open a business she says was cut off mid-fight with the property owners next door. Little owns the restaurant, which sat on Telegraph Road beside the Mega Fireworks building, and by her account was doing well right up until the electricity went out.
According to FOX 2 Detroit, Little says Mega Fireworks asked her for a 50 percent profit-sharing partnership on September 28, then gave her an ultimatum two days later before shutting off the electrical power to her kitchen, leaving her unable to cook. Little has said she never signed a lease for Fat Stax, despite repeatedly asking the property owners for one. Fat Stax had only been open about a month, but Little described the business as doing well before the shutdown.
Mega Fireworks tells a different story. The property owners say they initially helped Little with a food truck deposit and reached a partnership agreement on September 16 that entrusted her with their $150,000 food truck business after she told them she was feeling overwhelmed, per the same FOX 2 account. The two versions of events — a sudden, unwanted ultimatum versus a mid-month partnership deal gone sideways — remain unresolved, with each side describing a very different timeline of who agreed to what.
What Michigan Law Says About Shutting Off a Tenant's Power
Whatever the underlying business dispute, Michigan law draws a hard line around how landlords are allowed to remove a tenant. Under the state's Anti-Lockout Statute, MCL 600.2918, commercial landlords are strictly prohibited from using self-help eviction tactics such as cutting off electrical power or changing locks, according to a summary published by Landager. Instead, the law requires formal judicial summary proceedings to recover possession of a commercial space.
The same statute exposes property owners to real financial risk. A tenant whose possessory interest is unlawfully interfered with through a utility shutoff or lockout can sue for actual damages or $200 per occurrence, and up to triple actual damages if forcibly ejected, according to Marketplace Homes. That liability applies regardless of whether a lease was ever signed.
In fact, the absence of a signed lease does not clear a landlord to act unilaterally. Under Michigan Compiled Laws section 554.134, a commercial tenancy without a written lease defaults to a month-to-month or at-will arrangement, meaning the landlord is still required to serve a formal 30-day written notice to quit before starting any court eviction proceeding, according to a guide from DocDraft. It remains an open question whether any such notice, or a police report over the power shutoff, has been filed in this case.
A Burger Good Enough to Draw a 9.3 Rating
Fat Stax had built a reputation fast for a business barely a month old. The Burger Review reviewed a Fat Stax burger and gave it a 9.3 out of 10, the kind of score that had turned the Telegraph Road spot into a local favorite before the lights went out.
That goodwill showed up quickly once word of the closure spread. Local community members rallied behind Little after she posted online about the shutdown, offering financial support, food trucks, alternative restaurant spaces and storage options, FOX 2 Detroit reports. Whether Little accepts one of those offers, or pursues civil damages over the power shutoff, is still unknown.
