Grinch Alert… Although Squid’s favorite publication detailed the espresso highs and financial hangover lows of Morgan Christopher and the Ol’ Factory Café (“No Ordinary Joe,” Nov. 12-18), Squid still runs into friends befuddled by the Sand City café’s closure. In the holiday letter tradition, sort of, Christopher offered fans and merely curious onlookers an update in the “XXXmas 2009” edition of his newsletter.

“What happened was GFLs… Greedy F-ing Landlords,” Christopher writes, saying his landlords Kevin “Robbie” Robinson and his wife Lynn, who own Camel Stone Imports next door, put an end to the cherished hangout by evicting him before Thanksgiving.

“After several desperate attempts to evict us on any grounds they could come with,” he writes, “these GFLs took time from building their new five-bedroom trophy home in Pasadera and opening their new stone showroom in the Barnyard – not that there’s anything wrong with that – to issue a three-day Notice to Vacate the Premises. Just in time for the holidays.” Christopher owed about $14,000 in back rent. He claims that his landlords wouldn’t take offers from restaurateurs to pay off the debt and sublease the Ol’ Factory.

A bemused Robinson responds that he’s been more than generous with Christopher: “He’s owed me money for two and half years – since the day he opened. I tried to help him dig out of a hole; instead, he just kept digging more holes.” These holes include more than $100,000 in unpaid taxes and numerous other bills. Robinson says he didn’t see any chance of getting paid with the Ol’ Factory closed for six weeks.

As for subtenants, Robinson says he was never given a proposal and the one guy he talked to wanted a new lease. Squid knew Morgan’s relationship with Robinson, like his previous landlord at Osio – who he does not fail to dis in the newsletter – wasn’t going to end on good terms. Oh yeah, he also manages to get in a few potshots at the Weekly, calling our reporter, whom he’d previously praised for evenhandedness, “a tall young man bearing an uncanny resemblance to Bob Woodward.” Squid prefers Hunter S. Thompson, but apparently he’s Morgan’s role model.

Despite the people he burned financially and the Third Place followers he let down by closing, Christopher hasn’t ruled out another coffeehouse. He writes that rising from the ashes like the Phoenix this time won’t be as easy. As Morgan puts it: “No one makes up people this sleazy, stupid, and conniving.”

For once, Squid agrees.