Mission Beach Cafe sued by workers over wages
Nine current and former employees at Mission Beach Cafe in San Francisco have sued the popular breakfast and brunch restaurant over what they claim are a host of labor violations over the last four years.
The workers, who filed suit Monday in San Francisco Superior Court, allege that Mission Beach’s management routinely issued paychecks late and failed to properly compensate employees for the hours they worked. They also alleged that many paychecks bounced when employees tried to cash them.
“Every client has a story about a paycheck bouncing and being without their wages for several days or weeks,” said Carole Vigne, one of the lawyers representing the workers and the director of the Wage Protection Program at Legal Aid at Work, which provides free legal services for low-income individuals.
“One client wasn’t paid his wages that he earned in October until mid-December,” Vigne said, adding that paying employees late was a “common practice” at the cafe, which is
at 14th and Guerrero streets. “Things have gotten to the point where the workers can’t handle the instability any more.”
Bill Clarke, who manages Mission Beach Cafe, said he had only heard about the suit Monday and did not comment.
The restaurant industry is particularly susceptible to lawsuits over wages, given its high turnover rate, spotty oversight by government agencies and the overall lack of emphasis and resources that some owners put toward compliance with labor laws, according to Vigne.
“A lot of restaurants don’t invest in having a human resources department. They don’t have the money to have an attorney counseling them on what the law actually is. It takes a lot of engagement and enforcement to keep employers accountable to the law, and without that check-and-balance system, restaurants are able to get away with a lot,” Vigne said.
Last month, Tacolicious, a Bay Area Mexican restaurant chain, agreed to pay $900,000 to settle similar claims brought by a group of employees. The owners blamed its payroll problems on “loose recordkeeping” in the wake of its rapid expansion in recent years.
Anna Kirsch, an attorney at the Women’s Employment Rights Clinic who is representing the restaurant workers alongside Vigne, said the suit covers alleged wage and hour violations that date back to 2013. The lawyers say they’ve been negotiating with the restaurant for months to try to resolve the worker’s complaints, but conditions did not improve.
Vigne and Kirsch are still evaluating possible claims and alleged violations, so they could not estimate how much money they’ll be seeking from the restaurant.
The workers’ lawyers are not currently seeking class-action status for the case, but they’re not ruling out that possibility, should more workers come forward. Kirsch said many other employees may have the same circumstances.
Six plaintiffs are servers, one of whom no longer works at the restaurant. The others suing are a former sous chef, a barista and a busser.
The seven workers still at the restaurant say they will continue to work there as their case progresses. According to their attorneys, the employees remain committed to the success of the restaurant, and are suing as a way to make their workplace better, in addition to recouping the pay they say they’re owed.
“The workers want people to keep frequenting the business, they want customers to come and support them and the work they do,” Kirsch said. “They don’t want to drive people away.”
Dylan Germick, one of the workers bringing the suit and a server at Mission Beach Cafe since 2007, said that employees at the restaurant have been receiving paychecks with increasing irregularity for years. Germick said that Clarke, the restaurant’s manager, had recently taken to issuing handwritten payroll checks, rather than rely on a thirdparty processor, as he had previously done.
Germick said that while it would likely be “awkward as hell” to continue working as the lawsuit hangs over the restaurant, he said doing so was a way for he and his colleagues to demonstrate their commitment to improving their conditions.
“It feels good to work there to show that we’re not doing this to make a money grab or take (Clarke) down. We’re here because we love this place and, in our own way, we love Bill and we want to make sure this is done right,” Germick said.