NYC Diner Green Kitchen, Owners Facing Ex-Delivery Workers’ Wage and Hour Lawsuit

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

A proposed collective action has been filed against C & V 77 Enterprises, LLC and two individuals who run the company’s Green Kitchen restaurant by four plaintiffs who allege they’re owed unpaid wages. 

The named plaintiffs claim they worked more than 40 hours per week for the defendants without appropriate minimum, overtime or spread-of-hours pay as a result of the application of an improper, undisclosed tip credit to their hourly wages. The complaint charges that although the plaintiffs were on the defendants’ books as tipped delivery workers, they were required to spend considerable amounts of time each workday performing non-tipped responsibilities. 

“Upon information and belief, [the defendants] employed the policy and practice of disguising [the plaintiffs’] actual duties in payroll records by designating them as delivery workers instead of non-tipped employees,” the complaint states. “This allowed [the defendants] to avoid paying [the plaintiffs] at the minimum wage rate and enabled them to pay them above the tip-credit rate, but below the minimum wage.”

Each plaintiff additionally alleges he or she was required to buy “tools of the trade”—bicycles, locks, bike lights—without reimbursement. Further still, the ex-employees claim they were required to sign documents they were not able to look over that “falsely stated the hours” worked each week in order to receive their cash pay.