Diner Pays $400k for Wage Theft

Friendship Diner, a local diner in Evansville, Indiana, will pay $400,000 to 44 employees who were ordered to share or “pool” their tips, denied overtime pay, and retaliated against when they cooperated with investigators from the Department of Labor. Sometimes the pooling was done to give tips to non-servers on staff, while other times the servers were told they had to cover the restaurant’s credit card fees.

The order issued by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana on August 20, 2024, requires Friendship Diner LLC and owner, Bardhyl Shabani, to pay $10,000 in civil money penalties for the repeated and willful nature of its violations.

Specifically, the Wage and Hour Division determined the following:

• The diner operated an illegal tip-sharing pool by requiring servers to return $10 in tips for each weekday shift and $15 in tips for each weekend shift to management. The employers either kept the tips or used them to pay bussers’ hourly wages. By misusing these tips, the employers invalidated their tip credit.
• The diner failed to pay overtime at time and one-half the regular rate-of-pay for hours over 40 in a workweek, did not pay workers the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour and failed to keep accurate payroll records as required.

In addition to the payment of back wages, damages and penalties, the order requires Friendship Diner and Shabani to post and display the court judgment in the restaurant along with contact information for the local Department of Labor.

If you or someone you know are victims of wage theft at a restaurant or have questions about workers’ rights, contact the attorneys of Pechman Law Group at 212-583-9500 for a confidential consultation. We have recovered over $30 million for victims of wage theft.

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