Dinosaur Bar-B-Que Served with Class Action Wage Lawsuit

Dinosaur Bar-B-Que restaurants have been hit with a wage theft lawsuit by their waiters, bartenders, bussers, and runners. The workers claim, in a lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court, that the popular BBQ joint has shorted them out of overtime pay, minimum wage pay, and illegally withheld tips. According to the lawsuit, at the start and end of their shifts, front of the house “tipped workers” were required to do significant amounts of work that does not result in tips, such as cleaning the soda machine and cleaning and restocking the dessert refrigerator.  Moreover, they were required to share percentages of their tips with the kitchen staff, and were required to pay the restaurants’ management a $10 fee from their tips for large party reservations.  Attorneys for the restaurant’s workers claim that the restaurant should not have taken a “tip credit” and that the workers are owed the full minimum wage rate for all hours that they worked, in addition to overtime pay for hours worked in excess of forty per week. The lawsuit seeks class action status on behalf of waiters, bartenders, busboys, and runners at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que restaurants in Harlem, Brooklyn, Syracuse, Buffalo, Rochester, and Troy, New York.