Pearl Hour has survived the pandemic, but its business partnership has crumbled.

Pearl Hour was having its moment.

After opening in September 2019, the upscale cocktail bar at 214 Lighthouse Ave. in Monterey drew consistent crowds and a strong local following. On the back of its creative drink menu, live music and welcoming vibe, the bar’s success became a consensus when Weekly readers named it the Best New Business of 2019.

When Covid-19 came to town, Pearl Hour had to pull the reins on its momentum and temporarily shutter. Then partially reopen. Then shut down again. Pearl Hour reopened in February and, through the work of its executive team, appears well suited to be standing when the community enters its post-pandemic era.

But the executive team that held the bar together through its most turbulent times has fallen apart. Ever-present owner Katie Blandin and co-founder Chris Garrecht-Williams, a face as familiar as Blandin’s at the bar, are now only communicating through lawyers. He claims she is forcing him out of the bar he not only helped start but is owed partial ownership. She said he was never a partner in the business.

Blandin and Garrecht-Williams’ disagreement boiled over into a legal dispute earlier this year. In a letter written Feb. 5 and obtained by the Weekly, Blandin, after verbally agreeing in December to give him just under a 10-percent stake in the company, said she wanted Garrecht-Williams out of the picture. She sent a pair of checks covering his startup investment and some unpaid labor, and asked him to sign an acceptance of the money and forfeiture of all claims and rights to the company. Garrecht-Williams refused.

“I hope this doesn’t go to court but I am willing to fight for what I feel like is a tremendous amount of work that I put into not only a business opportunity but a dream,” he says.

Garrecht-Williams spoke with the Weekly at length about the legal battle and provided some verifying documents; many of the details in this story come from him. Blandin provided brief statements but confirms the dispute.

“Chris was an employee of Pearl Hour. He was never a partner in the business and was not an owner of Pearl Hour,” Blandin writes via email.

The two first began talking bar concepts in 2018 while Garrecht-Williams was working as a bartender and manager for Blandin’s catering company, Bar Cart Cocktail Co. The casual conversations intensified by early 2019, according to a timeline Garrecht-Williams provided his attorney. He admits over the years of their partnership, from planning to counting tips at the end of a successful night, the two never signed any formal contracts. Instead, they relied on trust and their plan to eventually figure out the uncertain formula of “sweat equity.”

“We trusted each other,” Garrecht-Williams says. “This might sound foolish, and it might be foolish, but it is a reason why we didn’t nail it down.”

Both confirm “multiple attempts” at a formal agreement but nothing stuck. Garrecht-Williams says just before Pearl Hour opened in 2019, in exchange for his $20,000 startup investment, work on the property and his years of bar experience, he and Blandin informally agreed he would take a 10-percent stake in the business.

Blandin increased the offer in January 2020 to 30 percent; however, he postponed the offer for six months, according to Garrecht-Williams’ timeline. During 2020’s carousel of shutdowns and reopenings, Garrecht-Williams claims he worked 978 unpaid hours. In December, Blandin amended her offer to a 7.1-percent stake, which he rejected. They negotiated to just under 10 percent and left it to Blandin’s lawyer to draw up the contract.

The next communication Garrecht-Williams received was Blandin’s Feb. 5 letter. Garrecht-Williams says he’d forego a stake in the company in exchange for fair payment of labor, which he calculates at $21,517.50 – in addition to his $20,000 startup investment.

“I’ve worked hard to keep Pearl Hour in business and as welcoming and unique a place for the community to gather, and I am focusing all my energy towards that end,” Blandin writes. “I am hopeful the attorneys can continue to work together to resolve this private disagreement so we can focus on the future.”