Posted on 03/29/2015 1:00:29 PM PDT by Kenny500c
A New York City law firm known for filing class action lawsuits on behalf of chain restaurant workers is going after Dinosaur Bar-B-Que for what it says is the systemic underpayment of tipped workers like servers and bartenders.
The law firm of Fitapelli & Schaffer said it has filed a class action lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York involving all six New York state Dinosaur Bar-B-Que locations, including the one opened in Troy in 2010.
Dinosaur has made tipped workers spend at least 20 percent of their time doing non-tippable work — like rolling silverware or refilling condiments — while still paying them the reduced hourly minimum wage that tipped employees typically receive, the law firm is alleging in its suit. Fitapelli & Schaffer put out a statement detailing the contents of the lawsuit.
Talk about this story on Steve Barnes' Table Hopping blog at http://blog.timesunion.com/tablehopping/
The law firm has already filed a similar class action lawsuit on behalf of TGI Friday's workers, and is representing apprentices and assistant managers of Chipolte in another case.
Also, the lawsuit claims Dinosaur did not pay time-and-a-half for employees working past 40 hours a week, forced tipped workers to pay a $10 fee to managers when receiving gratuities from pre-booked parties, and did not provide required extra pay to employees who worked more than 10 hours in a day, which "unlawfully burden the collective rights of their employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act and the New York Labor Law," according to the law firm.
No one from Dinosaur's corporate office could be reached for comment Sunday.
The lawsuit is filed against Dinosaur Restaurants, LLC, JLN-Store, Inc. f/k/a Dino-Store, Inc., Soros Strategic Partners LP, and founder John Stage, and targets workers at the Brooklyn, Buffalo, Harlem, Rochester, Syracuse and Troy locations. Dinosaur, which started as a food cart at a motorcycle rally in Duanesburg in 1983, was founded as a restaurant in 1988 in Syracuse and has now expanded to Newark, N.J. and Stamford, Conn. — with restaurants soon opening in Chicago and Baltimore.
A Times Union story in September detailed how the Troy Dinosaur has created half of the 80 jobs it promised when it received a 20-year payment in lieu of taxes agreement from the Troy Industrial Development Agency in 2009. But the company said the data was faulty because they had only reported the number of workers they had during a slow Christmas week, and that full-time equivalent hours added together would total 89 workers in 2013.
He also got a big tax break to open the restaurant.
...interesting...I have a daughter who lives in Rochester (I warned her) - said it’s mediocre BBQ at best anyway.....
Did xsboy eat here?
The lawsuit sounds ridiculous but its Soros....
See where this goes. If the lines are blurred between those working for tips, and those doing jobs which are not “tippable”, there could be some serious money at stake here.
All waiters do side work. ?? Sounds fishy.
Wrapping silverware and refilling napkin dispensers is hardly out of bounds
Wrapping silverware and refilling napkin dispensers is hardly out of bounds
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Legally, it may make a big difference, if there are segregated job descriptions for employees who do these different tasks.
I never worked in a restaurant. But have had enough other jobs in which I was expected to do things which weren’t exactly part of the official job description. And that could be the case here.
Then again, since tippable workers have a lower minimum wage due to the expectation of getting tips, it seems like they should have to document their time doing the differing tasks at work.
Legally, the lawyers will spend a lot of time and have many billable hours from this case.
I wonder when Soros bought in and started nickel-and-diming the employees, perhaps extracting their teeth for the gold in them. (Just like the old days in occupied Hungary.)
If 20% of their income is not from tips, then they can spend 20% of their time doing other things.
Or we can stop bringing napkins and forks to customers and see what happens to their tips.
When trying to topple the economic pyramid, one could chop off a layer at a time starting from the top or one could take out the bottom in one fell swoop.
All the workers of the class will receive a coupon for 20 percent off their next visit to Dinosaur Bar-B-Que.
The attorneys will take home tens of thousands of dollars.
The obnoxious part of the Dinosaur is that they are constantly giving patrons the bum’s rush in order to turn the table. You can’t go there and have a nice meal, desert and a cup of coffee and some conversation. And it’s attitude on the PA system announcing to the entire restaurant that you are taking too much (in their opinion) time. They expect you to woof down the food, chug your drink and skeedatle ASAP and leave them 20% for being obnoxious.
I enjoyed the Dinosaur when it first opened in Syracuse in early 1990’s, when it went commercial, is when I stopped going.
By the way, all their recipes are in a cookbook that is readily available.
Their just isn’t enough $$$ around to run a profitable enterprise and treat your staff properly and the customer at the same time. Too big a govt chunk taken out in so many ways. Profits today are made by cheating customers or staff.
Get BIG govt out of business and it can return.
Well, dinosaurs have been known to be real cheapskates; no wonder they're extinct!
BTTT for post of the millinium!!!
In the old days( I don't know what you mean about occupied Hungary) Soros simply turned his people in to the Nazis for internment..........and death.
Everywhere I ever waited tables I did side work, its part of the job..
"We strongly discourage tipping your server. The price of your meal already includes a 20% gratuity."
See how they like their wages and no tips!
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