Buffalo's Café Operators Hit with Unpaid Wage Lawsuit

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A former server has filed a proposed class and collective action complaint against her former employer Smith Food Group, Inc., which does business as Buffalo’s Café, over alleged violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The plaintiff, who worked for Buffalo Café from 2010 through March 2017, claims she and similarly situated workers were not paid proper minimum or time-and-a-half overtime wages as a result of the restaurant paying the workers pursuant to the FLSA’s tip credit provision.

The issue with the defendant utilizing the tip credit method of payment in this scenario, the lawsuit argues, is that it unlawfully required workers to perform a significant amount of non-tipped work activities, such as cleaning and preparing food. Under the FLSA, an employer may not utilize the tip credit payment method if tipped workers’ non-tipped responsibilities exceed 20 percent of the work day. Another alleged FLSA violation cited in the complaint is the defendant’s policy of only allowing servers to officially clock into work after they had been assigned their first customers in their respective sections.