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Nearly a year after one of its owners reported to federal prison to serve time for committing fraud, Breakfast Bitch is in danger of losing its home on Roosevelt Row.
The landlord of the downtown Phoenix brunch spot asked a judge to evict the restaurant and order it to pay more than $26,500 in overdue rent and late fees in a terse complaint filed Feb. 26 in Maricopa County Superior Court. The lawsuit alleged that the restaurant didn't pay a portion of its January rent and none of the February payment.
The tongue-in-cheek eatery, located at 330 E. Roosevelt St., is owned by Tracii Show Hutsona, and her husband, Derrell. Hutsona bilked more than $1 million from her celebrity ex-boss in 2021. After pleading guilty to a fraud charge, she reported to prison on March 20, 2023. At the time, Derrell Hutsona shared via email that “we will stay open & business will run as usual.”
This is not the first setback that Breakfast Bitch has experienced since Hutsona went to prison. In October, online news source SanDiegoVille reported that the original location of Breakfast Bitch in San Diego’s Hillcrest neighborhood closed — just over four years after opening.
Breakfast Bitch moved from the Cambria Hotel to Roosevelt Row in 2022. The restaurant owes more than $26,500 in unpaid rent, according to a complaint filed by its landlord.
Natasha Yee
Owner pegged as ‘serial con artist’
Hutsona was arrested in Arizona in February 2021 and charged with wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. Prosecutors called her a “serial con artist.”Over the course of four years — from October 2015 to November 2019 — Hutsona stole more than $1 million from Joumana Kidd, an actress and ex-wife of Jason Kidd, the former NBA star and current head coach of the Dallas Mavericks.
“She can talk anybody into anything," Hutsona's sister, Deborah Lindstrom, told the New York Times in 2021.
Hutsona’s fraud scheme included transferring hundreds of thousands of dollars from Joumana Kidd’s checking account and two college savings accounts for Kidd’s children to her own at a time when Hutsona was being paid $80,000 a year as Joumana Kidd’s personal assistant, prosecutors said.
In July 2022, Hutsona pleaded guilty to one count of fraud. On Feb. 28, 2023, she was sentenced to 51 months in prison and three years of supervised release — well above the 33- to 41-month sentence prosecutors sought. She was also ordered to pay $1,148,759.28 in restitution to her victims.
Hutsona reported to prison on March 20, 2023, nearly a month before she was required to do so, after prosecutors alleged she had violated the conditions of her release by harassing her victims through social media and posed a flight risk.
“Since her sentencing less than two weeks ago, the defendant has repeatedly violated conditions of her release by posting publicly available messages on the Internet that are intended to harass the victim and include financial account information of the victim and the victim’s family members,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a March 2023 letter to U.S. District Court Judge Jesse Furman.
In an interview with 12News, Hutsona said she had "mixed emotions" as she readied to report to prison.
"Tough to leave, obviously my family and my staff and Breakfast Bitch. I feel a lot of remorse. And it's really hit me that, you know, your past never really leaves you," she told the TV station.
In 2008, Hutsona was convicted in a separate fraud case and sentenced to more than six years in prison.
Both Hutsonas are listed as members of BB Restaurant Group, the entity that does business as Breakfast Bitch, on documents filed with the Arizona Corporation Commission. Derrell Hutsona is the licensee on the restaurant’s liquor license.
Breakfast Bitch opened in Phoenix’s Cambria Hotel in November 2020, followed by a short-lived food truck, Bitch on the Run, at the Pemberton in 2021. The restaurant later took over the troubled Golden Margarita space in October 2022. Records filed by the Roosevelt Row location’s landlord show the lease for that space was inked in July 2022.
The recent court filing from AZ Roosevelt Row Apartments alleged that Breakfast Bitch was $2,796.70 short on its $22,576.03 rent in January and did not pay rent at all in February.
Hutsona is serving her sentence in the medium security Federal Correctional Institution, Phoenix. Her expected release date is June 17, 2026, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Hutsona’s Instagram profile links to a blog, Bitch in Prison.
New Times was not able to immediately reach Derrell Hutsona or the restaurant. Breakfast Bitch was open on Monday.
Tirion Boan contributed to this story.
