Ex-New Ewing Diner cook says in lawsuit he was snubbed out of OT pay

EWING >> A former cook at the New Ewing Diner claims the restaurant’s co-owners were cookin’ up a lot more than diner food.

Luis Lema, who worked at the popular Parkway Avenue eatery for about a year and a half, says co-owners Petros Gromitsaris and Peter Kritsikokas “willfully and intentionally” violated the Federal Labor Standards Act and the New Jersey State Wage and Hour Law, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court in Trenton.

The ex-cook was entitled to get time and a half for all hours over the 40-hour work week. He is demanding back pay, damages, attorney fees and interest on the lost wages for himself and “similarly situated” employees who might not have the means to demand fair wages through litigation.

The lawsuit claims the owners cooked the books by purposely failing to keep full and accurate records of the hours that Lema worked for the duration of his employment, from October 2017 to April of this year.

Lema’s pay stubs “did not represent the number of hours he actually worked,” according to the the suit, filed by attorney Qinyu Fan out of Flushing, New York.

Fan declined to comment on the filing.

Lema was one of about 10 employees at the diner, which grosses more than a half-million in revenue each year, the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit says at least eight employees are still working for the restaurant owners and are unlikely to file their own lawsuits because they fear being retaliation.

Lema is suing the owners on behalf of other employees who also suffered losses over the last three years.

The lawsuit claims the “collection action members are so numerous the joinder of all members is impracticable.”

Co-owners Gromitsaris and Kritsikokas are heavily involved in day-to-day operations, the suit says, setting employees’ pay and work schedules.

Lema, who also stocked, washed dishes, organized inventory and helped out the chef, made a flat $10 an hour for the first year or so, despite working overtime, and was bumped up to $12 an hour in March of this year, the suit stated.

He worked five days a week, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday, and from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, according to the lawsuit.

Lema “was not able to take meal breaks during each shift, and when he could catch a break between works, each break lasts about 5 to 10 minutes,” according to the lawsuit.

Greek-born partners Gromitsaris and Kritsikokas ran another eatery, Two Peters Diner, off Olden Avenue, which has since closed.

“I want to be known as the king of diners in Mercer County,’ Gromitsaris said in an interview with The Trentonian in 2012.

Two Peters Diner drew headlines in 2013 after a fierce brawl erupted inside. The Trentonian obtained and published video of the violence.

Gromitsaris brought suit against the five people allegedly involved in the destructive melee. Court records show he voluntarily withdrew the lawsuit in December 2017.

Gromitsaris said he did not remember Lema working for him but said all his employees are properly paid for any overtime they work.

“For me, it’s a little odd that he would file a complaint,” he said. “How come he’s not filing a complaint to the labor department? I don’t know. You caught me off guard right now.”