Attempting to fuck over the rightful heir to the restaurant he ran wasn't evil?

Given the current state of the world, I would say his greedy capitalistic mindset that puts profit over integrity makes him pretty evil, imo.

The rat was sentient and washed his hands though. Discriminating against him on the basis of his species is wrong.

That was incidental to his overall motivation. He was a villain well before he found out about Remy.