Read Barbara Lynch’s statement on closing and selling multiple of her restaurants

The Barbara Lynch Collective said Friday that its three adjoining Fort Point restaurants — Menton, pictured here, as well as Sportello and Drink — would close immediately.Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff

Famed Boston restaurateur Barbara Lynch, who came under fire last spring for fostering a toxic workplace culture in her high-end kitchens, announced Friday that she would be closing three of her renowned restaurants and selling off two more. Just three will remain open.

Read a statement below on the closures and sales:

The Barbara Lynch Collective today announced it will reorganize, selling two South End restaurants to former protégés of the famed chef and restaurateur and shuttering three Fort Point establishments because of an uncooperative landlord. The flagship No. 9 Park on Beacon Hill will continue to operate along with B&G Oysters in the South End and The Rudder in Gloucester.

Last fall Barbara Lynch hired Lorraine Tomlinson-Hall, a turnaround specialist with a strong track record of success as chief operating officer of the company. Tomlinson-Hall took a deep dive into the eight restaurant group’s finances and found that prior restaurant operational managers whom Lynch had entrusted had failed to respond to post-pandemic realities. Tomlinson-Hall tightened the belt and implemented business development strategies that have proved quite successful. But her recovery plan fell on deaf ears with the Congress Street landlords.

The announcement this morning of the immediate closure of Menton, the only Relais & Châteaux property in Boston, as well as Sportello, a modern style trattoria, and Drink, a cocktail bar, is costing the jobs of 100 staffers working at the Congress Street property owned by New York-based Acadia Realty Trust.

“We’re beyond disappointed that Acadia apparently would rather force out long-term tenants paying over market rates and push a hundred people out of work because they think they can get Seaport District rates,” said Tomlinson-Hall. “We have done everything possible to avoid putting these creative, dedicated, hard working people out of jobs, but had no choice when a working solution with the landlord wasn’t “agreeable” to them,” she said.

“It’s difficult to let go of the gains we’ve made the past few months - a hugely successful popup patisserie at Menton and cementing a working partnership with a luxury jeweler for private events - just two examples of the great strides we’ve made,” Tomlinson-Hall said. “From this challenge, however, we will emerge and continue with the quality we’re renowned for.”

For her part, Barbara Lynch said, “Boston is no longer the same place where I opened seven restaurants over the last 25 years. Properties have been flipped and flipped and the landlords just want the rents that only national chains can sustain.” Lynch said her future expansion hopes are focused on the North Shore where she has concentrated on her newest concept, The Rudder in Gloucester.

When the first Lynch establishment opened in 2008, Fort Point was still a neighborhood of warehouses and surface parking lots. In 2010, Lynch added the jewel to the crown, Menton. From the start, Menton was praised as one of the best new restaurants of the year by Bon Appetit and Esquire, and each year since 2012 it has been awarded AAA’s Five Diamond Award and Forbes Travel Guide’s Five-Star Award.

During the pandemic, twice a week Barbara Lynch herself cooked meals for staff at Menton and handed out then-scarce rolls of toilet paper as well as other household essentials that her staff was struggling to find.

But while the Congress Street property went through a series of owners, the rents only climbed. Since 2018, the three restaurants have paid $88,000 in monthly rent to Acadia Realty. The high rents persisted despite the fact that the Congress Street restaurants had no functioning air conditioning last summer after someone turned off the water tower, and damages from burst pipes and flooding affected Drink and Menton’s wine cellar.

The longevity of the restaurant group has defied the mortality of the sector in general and the high failure rate during COVID. The collective is also unusual for the unique concept of each property defying the cookie cutter norm of the industry. Lynch started it in 1998 with No. 9 Park on Beacon Hill. She has enjoyed tremendous personal success as the winner of multiple James Beard awards and she was named one of Time magazine’s most influential people of 2017. As an employer, Lynch has taken pride in pioneering the practice of paying employees salaries and offering medical benefits, education, and even mental health counseling in an industry known for a lack of work-life balance. Even when the restaurants were closed because of COVID, many Congress Street employees were receiving their full salaries and the company footed the full rent that was due.

Note:

All gift cards purchased for the closing restaurants will be honored at No. 9, B&G Oysters or The Rudder. Anyone who booked private parties will be contacted directly in the coming days.

Reorganization by restaurant

Closing immediately: Menton, Sportello, Drink in Fort Point

Under agreement for sale: The Butcher Shop, South End, Stir, South End

Remaining in business: No. 9 Park, Beacon Hill, B&G Oysters, South End, The Rudder, Gloucester