Buca di Beppo Cheated Workers Out of Wages, According to Wage Theft Lawsuit

A wage theft lawsuit claims the Times Square location of Buca di Beppo, a nationwide Italian restaurant, failed to pay its workers minimum wages and overtime pay in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and the New York Labor Law.  According to a former server, Buca di Beppo maintained a policy of cheating its servers, bussers, and bartenders out of their wages by requiring them to clock out and continue working unpaid and off the clock, as well as refusing to pay them spread of hours pay when the length of their workday exceeded 10 hours. According to the former server, Buca di Beppo required him to record his time using the restaurant’s point-of-service system, but did not allow him to accurately keep track of his hours.  He alleges that whenever he worked a double shift, Buca di Beppo required him to clock out for 30 minutes between shifts, even though he continued to work at the restaurant during that time.  When working the double shifts, the server claims his workday exceeded 10 hours, yet he never received spread of hours pay of an additional hour of pay at the minimum wage rate. The class action lawsuit states that the server regularly worked more than 40 hours per week, yet whenever he worked more than 28 hours in a week, the restaurant would roll back and adjust his hours worked by reducing the hours on his time records.  It’s further claimed that Buca di Beppo shaved time by requiring the server to arrive at work two hours before the start of his shift to perform unpaid, off-the-clock work.