Dave & Buster's Hit with Lawsuit Over Unpaid Bartender, Server Wages

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An opt-in collective action filed against Dave & Buster’s claims workers were not paid proper wages pursuant to Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) guidelines. The 19-page lawsuit, filed in Tennessee, names Dave & Buster’s, Inc., Dave & Buster’s Entertainment, Inc., Dave & Buster’s Management Corporation, Inc., Dave & Buster’s Holdings, Inc. and Tango of Tennessee, Inc.—all collectively known as Dave & Buster’s Grand Sports Café—as defendants.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of current and former tipped Dave & Buster’s bartenders and servers who were subject to the defendants’ centralized scheme of “strictly enforcing restricted hours of compensable work per day and per week (budgeted labor),” the case reads. This was allegedly accomplished by the defendants providing incentives to restaurant managers for staying within or below budgeted labor benchmarks. Managers who failed to stay within work-hours guidelines were punished, the suit claims.

All told, the goal of the defendants’ alleged scheme was for proposed collective members to perform off-the-clock work, with managers requiring the employees to “perform non-tip producing tasks while clocked-in to its timekeeping system as tipped employees at a tip credit wage,” the lawsuit says.