A small convenience store that has served a crucial role as the sole retail hub for thousands of residents in Morgan Hill’s eastern hills is set to close next month after the property’s landlord declined to renew the tenant’s lease.
Charlie King, who opened Hilltop Market on Jackson Oaks Drive in June 2014, said he received a 30-day notice to vacate from landlord Prem Gupta with no warning and no violation of lease terms cited.
“He’s decided to not renew my lease and gave me a 30-day notice to vacate, which was really unexpected,” King said. “I didn’t do anything to violate my lease.”
King must be out by April 13.
The closure stands to affect an estimated 3,500 residents in the surrounding hillside communities, including Holiday Lake Estates and Morning Sun Terrace, who rely on the market for everyday essentials, local specialty foods and a sense of community. The nearest alternative requires a long, winding drive down into town.
King, a former real estate agent, opened the market after identifying what he saw as an unmet need among residents of the hilltop neighborhoods. What began in 2014 as a modest shop stocked with coffee and donuts grew into a curated market offering “fiercely local” merchandise including craft beers, local wines, Gizdich Ranch pies, Freedom Meat Locker sausages and meats, Treat Ice Cream and a full coffee and espresso bar, among other products.
An employee who asked not to be identified by name said the store had become a beloved fixture in the community. “Customers and everybody are so friendly. They’ll give you a tip when you don’t even expect a tip, even the little kids,” they said. “There is so much love that we’re here, because we’re convenient.”
King said he had invested everything in the business, living in an RV to keep overhead low and working around the clock to build it into a viable enterprise.
“I live in my RV, so I don’t have any huge expenses, but I do that on purpose in order to keep this thing afloat and to keep it there for the community,” he said. “It was working. I got it to a point where I have an excellent staff, and a point where it is cashflow-positive. That store should have been there for 100 years.”
King said he had attempted to sell the business on multiple occasions over the years, but that each prospective sale fell through. He attributed the failed deals to Gupta’s interference.
“I’ve had four people who have tried to buy it, but every time I found a buyer, he would kill the deal,” King said.
Gupta disputed that characterization, saying that prospective buyers had consistently failed to meet the lease requirements he sets for long-term tenants.
“They want a long-term lease, five/ten-year lease. If you sign a five/ten year lease with somebody, then (you have to) make sure the person will qualify for that,” Gupta said. “I don’t want to sign a long-term lease with somebody, and then after one year they will default on rent, and then end up in court.”
Gupta also claimed that King’s tenancy had prevented him from leasing the two other vacant units on the property, citing more than a decade of bad blood and petty grievances that led to the landlord ultimately deciding to terminate King’s lease.
“He has done a lot of nuisance things. Not one, not two things, dozens of nuisance things,” Gupta said. “He is the reason the units are empty. I cannot survive just renting Unit A to Charlie… there are property taxes, it is a huge mortgage payment, and as long as Charlie is there, I cannot rent Unit B and Unit C because he is a troublemaker.”
Community leaders say the closure would be felt far beyond the loss of a convenient shopping stop. Sean Mulligan, a board member of the Holiday Lake Estates Maintenance Association, one of three homeowners associations whose members use the market, said the store serves a social function that nothing else in the area provides.
“It’s the only community space for Holiday Lakes Estates and Morning Sun Terrace. We don’t have any amenities, we don’t have clubhouses or anything, so this kind of functions as a social space as well,” Mulligan said. “It’s a huge loss.”
As news of the store’s coming closure has spread, local residents and customers have begun expressing support online for Charlie and his store, with hundreds of users taking to NextDoor to voice their appreciation for his decades of service to the community. Many have floated ideas for how to save the beloved business.
Mulligan said one potential long-term solution would be for the three associations to purchase the property from Gupta and convert it into a community-owned market, though he acknowledged significant hurdles remain, including whether Gupta would be willing to sell and whether member votes would support amending the associations’ governing documents to allow for the purchase.
Gupta said he has not yet decided what he will do with the property after Hilltop Market’s closure, but acknowledged that it leaves an important niche empty in the community.
“As far as the community is concerned, I will definitely open some businesses there that will help the community (and be) convenient for the community,” he said. “There’s no doubt about that.”
King said he has not given up hope of finding a way to stay, but acknowledged the situation looks bleak. In spite of his consistently hostile relationship with his landlord, King kept his focus on what mattered most to him: building a business that served the community he loved. But now, losing his retail space without having the opportunity to sell his business leaves King unable to recoup his investment.
“I don’t want to leave. It’s not my intention to close the store. I’d love to stay, I love the people up there, I love the community, and I loved doing what I was doing,” he said. “I’ve put my heart and soul into this place.”
