Abbotsford convent ordered to reinstate evicted restaurant operator
A Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal ruling has handed a self-represented restaurateur a significant legal win against the Abbotsford Convent Foundation, ordering the not-for-profit to restore access to a Japanese restaurant it locked him out of earlier this month.
Joe Shin, who has operated Kappaya Japanese Restaurant at the Abbotsford Convent since 2016, was evicted on May 1 when the foundation changed the locks and posted security guards at the premises. Shin, representing himself, brought an urgent application before VCAT on Monday. The foundation responded with a chief executive, a head of governance, a barrister and two solicitors and still lost.
VCAT deputy president Richard Wilson, sitting with senior member Holly Nash, ruled that Shin must be granted re-entry by 11am Tuesday, with the matter to proceed to mediation next month. In handing down the decision, Wilson noted there was a "serious issue to be tried" on whether a dispute over outdoor furniture was legally sufficient grounds to terminate an underlying lease.
Shin also operates the Convent Bakery on site, having taken on that tenancy in 2018, and faces a separate eviction there as the foundation pursues a change of operator. He told the tribunal the outdoor furniture and liquor licence dispute was being used as a pretext to remove him. He has attributed the deterioration in his relationship with the foundation to his business speaking out on lease-related matters during the pandemic.
His formal lease at Kappaya expired in December, but Shin argues that Victorian COVID-19 commercial tenancy regulations obliged landlords to negotiate extensions with tenants to account for trading lost during the pandemic.
The practical fallout from the May 1 eviction was immediate: approximately a week's worth of food was left inaccessible inside the restaurant, and five staff members were stood down. Shin said he would move to rehire them following the ruling.
He also questioned the cost of the foundation's legal representation, telling The Age the deployment of multiple lawyers and a barrister would not have come cheaply, and asking whether that was an appropriate use of charitable funds.
A foundation spokeswoman said Monday night that the decision to terminate the Kappaya lease reflected multiple considerations including compliance and long-term planning for the precinct. "The Abbotsford Convent Foundation will continue to engage constructively with the tenant as it considers the implications of the VCAT decision," she told The Age.
Yarra Council Mayor Stephen Jolly welcomed the outcome but framed it as part of a broader concern about the convent's direction. "The convent was won through a picket line and a long-term protest in the late 1990s and early 2000s," he told The Age. "It's been turned into a sort of headquarters for the professional managerial classes – it's just designers and consultants now. If you go there now with no money in your pocket, you know, you feel like you've gatecrashed somebody's party you weren't invited to."
Jolly described the ruling as a "wake-up call" for the foundation's leadership to reconsider its approach.
Jonathan Jackson, 20th May 2026
