Owner vows to fight order to remove Pyhtää motorway cafes

Finland’s Transport Infrastructure Agency has ordered two vacant Cafe Finlandia buildings beside the E18 motorway in Pyhtää removed from state land by the end of November. Their owner, businessman Georg Jaruta, says he will defend his ownership rights, Yle reports.

The agency says the buildings have no valid agreement or other legal basis for remaining on the land, and that cafe services are no longer needed at the rest areas. It has warned that it will take legal action to regain control of the land if the buildings are not removed by the deadline.

The cafes, located on opposite sides of the motorway about two kilometres apart, have been closed since the end of 2023. They opened in 2014, but their operations were intermittent from the outset.

An agreement to build the cafes was made in 2013 between the road construction contractor and an entrepreneur. It said the buildings, built at the entrepreneur’s expense, would pass to the state without compensation when the agreement ended. The contract was due to expire at the end of September 2026.

The original cafe operator went bankrupt in December 2015. The bankruptcy estate sold the buildings, which changed hands once more before reaching Jaruta in 2017. The agency previously delayed efforts to remove them while it investigated their ownership. It now says its documents show that they belong to Scan Yard and Jaruta.

Jaruta says the buildings were constructed with legally issued permits and that his company acquired them through proper transactions. He says the agency has not explained why they must be removed, beyond stating that it no longer needs cafe services at the rest areas.

Jaruta says he has spent more than a decade trying to invest in and develop the cafe business and will use all available means to protect his interests. He did not say what plans he has for restarting or developing the business.