Aqua Grill Under Water in Ex-Employees’ Wage and Hour Collective Action

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On the Half Shell, Inc., which runs Florida eatery Aqua Grill, is the defendant in a proposed collective action brought by two former tipped employees who claim they’re owed back wages. The plaintiffs say they and other servers and bartenders were not paid the mandatory minimum wage as the result of being required to participate in an unlawful tip pool through which money was shared with employees and management who customarily do not receive tips. The complaint adds servers were also allegedly required to share with management tips received from parties of eight or more.

Citing Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) violations, the plaintiffs further allege tipped Aqua Grill employees:

• Were not given proper notice of the defendant’s intent on applying a tip credit to their wages, nor the requirements of the aforementioned tip pool;
• Were not paid for all hours logged into Aqua Grill’s time-keeping system as a result of managers manipulating employees’ documented work time;
• Were, twice per week, “clocked out by management prior to the end of their shifts,” leading to off-the-clock work;
• Were required to come in once per week to stock inventory, time for which they were not allowed to clock in;
• Were required to attend meetings for which they were not paid; and
• Had to spend more than 20 percent of their work time performing non-tipped tasks around the restaurant for which they were only paid Florida’s tipped minimum wage.

“By virtue of [the defendant’s] retention of a portion of its bartender/server employees’ tips, and re-distributing some to individuals not eligible to receive tips, [the defendant] was rendered ineligible to claim the tip credit,” the complaint states, explaining members of the proposed collective should have instead been paid the regular hourly minimum wage.