ENCINITAS — A Little Moore Café in Leucadia has closed less than a year after reopening under new ownership following a fallout between childhood friends turned business partners.
Andy Vasquez and Deon Dickey reopened the popular restaurant in January after an extensive remodel, but the property is now up for sale, the business has been shut down, and civil lawsuits have been filed by both parties alleging wrongdoing.
Vasquez and Dickey have known one another for 25 years, according to a court filing. Dickey even lived with the Vasquez family as a child.
In March 2023, the two formed a limited liability company, or LLC, to purchase A Little Moore Café, according to court filings. In December 2023, Vasquez and Dickey agreed to purchase the business from the restaurant’s original owners, Charles and Jennifer Winter, using a $175,000 loan from the Winters.
The following month, they formalized an operating agreement that listed Vasquez, Dickey and the Winters as managers, each holding a stake in the business: 42.5% each for Dickey and Vasquez, and 15% for the Winter family trust, according to court documents.
The café, which had been closed during the transition of ownership, reopened Jan. 19.
Vasquez assumed day-to-day management of the business, documents show. In addition to his role within the café, Dickey worked as a seasonal firefighter with Cal Fire, which had a notably busy season in 2024.
Lawsuits filed by Vasquez, Dickey, and the Winter family paint different pictures of the disagreement that led to the business’s closure.
Lawyers representing both parties declined to comment for this story. Dickey could not be reached for comment. Vasquez told The Coast News, “We had a huge falling out,” but declined to comment further based on legal advice.
Dickey and the Winters, representing a majority of the ownership group, claim in legal filings that they removed Vasquez as manager on March 18, “following a series of disagreements.”
After removing Vasquez as manager, Dickey and the Winters alleged he refused to turn over login credentials critical to operations, including an Instagram account used for promotions, a business email account for vendor communications, and access to bank accounts.
Vasquez claims in his legal filings that during the week of March 9, Dickey and Jennifer Winter “suddenly became angry and accusatory about the manner in which the Café was being operated.”
He said they became “belligerent in public on the sidewalk in front of the café” and fired him without following the formal procedures outlined in the operating agreement, including failing to present evidence of wrongdoing.
At that point, Vasquez argues that Dickey and the Winters took steps to remove him from his day-to-day role with the café and to force him out of the ownership group.
“On or around March 17,” Vazquez said in the filings, Winter and Dickey began telling people associated with the business — including employees, the landlord and locals — that Vazquez had threatened them with physical violence and that he was a “dangerous individual with gang ties” and “an untrustworthy individual who should be feared by the community.”
Dickey and the Winters claim in legal filings that the December 2023 agreement called for the purchase of the business in monthly installments of $2,916.67. Those payments, totaling $175,000, were scheduled to begin June 1, 2024, and continue for five years.
They claim in the legal complaint that no payments were ever made.
Vasquez, in his lawsuit, did not address whether the payments were made.
He claimed that he spent more than $100,000 of his own money in 2024 to prepare the café for reopening the following year. The legal complaint also said that Jennifer Winter prepaid rent from January 2024 to January 2025 in the amount of $97,000.
The case is scheduled for a jury trial on April 17, 2026, in Vista Superior Court.
Christopher Bacon contributed to this report.
