THE  FROG IS PIRATED FROM US For 25 years our labor of love has been The Satisfied Frog. We created it, nursed it, caressed it and finally lost it. How did this happen? I don't want to bore you with a lot of details but over the last few years we have been paying off a massive IRS payroll tax debt that started with a former manager back in 1998. Like most IRS debts it started out relatively small. I contacted one of those, " Never Meet with the IRS companies," Big mistake. By the time they got around to doing anything about resolving the issue the penalties and interest were over $300,000.00 and that is a big hit for a restaurant to take. I was able to make a deal with them and we had paid it down to $67.000.00. This was all out of cash flow from the restaurant. Since the 9/11 tragedy our restaurant business, in Cave Creek, never rebounded to 1998-99 levels. We stayed steady for the last few years but this last summer was very slow- recession- heat- who knows? Weekends were good but on the weekdays we actually lost money. Maria and I borrowed, mortgaged and did what ever we had to do to keep the doors open and 70 people employed. Over the past few years, on some months, we were not able to pay our lease payment to our landlord in full. They were not happy but allowed us to get behind on the payments. We were the lead tenant and when we opened in 1982 we were the only store in Frontier Town. All the other tenants and stores came in because we were drawing the crowds. This allowed the landlord to charge exorbitant rents for run down stores. Over the past 25 years the landlords, Julian Peagler, Beverly Peagler and their son Marc Peagler have barely kept Frontier Town nailed together and collected millions from tenants. The result of getting behind in the lease payments was a substantial amount owed to Frontier and the Peaglers. Remember they allowed us to pay partial rent payments weekly and accepted those payments saying or doing nothing else. On Friday February 15th at 2:00 PM, Maria was having lunch at the restaurant and she was approached by Marc Peagler. He asked her to step outside where she found His Mother Beverly, The Father Julian and two Sheriff's Deputies. They handed  her a piece of paper that basically said, " You owe us back rent and we are taking possession of the premises and you have 5 minutes to gather your personal things and get out. If you don't we will escort you off the property with the Sheriff's deputies. At that time they took over the restaurant- using all of our cash in cash drawers, inventory of food and liquor, that we paid for, and our utilities. They told our help that they were welcome to stay and they would be working for a new entity known as " The Satisfied Frog LLC". It is obvious that this was planned in advance. THIS WAS ALL WITH NO PRIOR NOTICE OR WARNINGS as called for in our lease. They also claimed use of the name because I forgot to register it in 1998 with the State of Arizona. Ok, so that means if Home depot forgets to register in Arizona I can go out and open up a Home Depot store. I don't think so. Maria and I own that name and have been using it for 25 years- Did we own the landlord money? Yes Were they accepting partial payments? Yes Was the restaurant up and running and paying it's current bills? Yes Were we employing 70 employees most of them long time? Yes Will they be able to keep up the quality and the uniqueness of The Satisfied Frog? NO The Frog is Maria and I and our family of employees. They have already stopped selling Chili Beer. They are firing long time employees. Watch what happens to food quality and service. No one wants to work for a JERK and believe me a Jerk has taken over. So now that you have our side of the story - what are we going to do? Well of course there is legal recourse and the IRS, who has liens on everything, will have a say so in how this all shakes out. Maria and I although somewhat BROKE still have another business, Chili Beer, that we will pursue. In closing We would sincerely like to thank the millions of loyal customers who have visited us over the last 25 years. The Frog as we know it is no more. But the spirit lives on in our hearts and you know Colonel Sanders started Kentucky Fried Chicken when he was 70. I am 70 and have a lot of fruitful years ahead of me- With all our love and best wishes to all of you. Ed and Maria Chilleen