World of Beer to pay its employees
But advertising bill still going through court
World of Beer closed in downtown Chattanooga on Aug. 28, but its memory lives on — especially for employees who finally got paid Thursday, and for a local media company that’s suing the franchisee of the craft beer tavern for $8,650 in unpaid advertising bills.
The missing pay for World of Beer employees was subject of TV news coverage after Cory Love, who worked at the 412 Market St. location since January 2015, posted on Sept. 3 on his Facebook page that employees hadn’t been paid for their last two weeks’ work.
“No one is getting paid what is owed to us,” Love posted, saying then that bar staff was owed $800 and the back of house, or kitchen staff, was owed more than $2,000.
“My kitchen manager has SIX KIDS. SIX. KIDS. And you aren’t paying us?” wrote Love, who worked as a waiter. “I have a written message from my boss saying that us getting paid at this point is a trivial matter. Trivial!?”
But Love said Thursday that employees are being paid — though some credit card tips were still owed.
“Finally reached my boss,” Love said. “We are being paid, he said give our tips another couple weeks.”
He added, “I don’t think we plan legal action anymore,
since those on hourly pay were taken care of.”
Brewer Broadcasting of Chattanooga Inc. has a civil lawsuit pending in Hamilton County Sessions Court against Wayne N. Farmer, a Tampa, Fla.-area businessman who was the World of Beer franchisee here.
“We hope that we get a judgment against Farmer,” said Brian P. Mickles, the Chattanooga attorney who represents Brewer Broadcasting in the suit, which seeks $8,650 in damages, plus interest, attorney’s fees and court costs.
Brewer Broadcasting’s lawsuit was filed in February, but it slowed down in August after Farmer’s Chattanooga attorney, Matthew J. Fitzharris, was suspended from the practice of law after he broke into a Ringgold-area couple’s house on July 12 and behaved bizarrely, prompting the elderly man to shoot Fitzharris twice in the arm.
Farmer said that he didn’t owe the employees any pay, when contacted by phone Wednesday.
“They don’t work for me, they work for a management company called RKE,” Farmer said, referring to Reeves Krumin Enterprises LLC, a Tampa, Fla. business that operates other World of Beer outlets.
Efforts to reach RKE by phone were unsuccessful.
World of Beer closed because of a financial dispute between the franchisee here and the building’s landlord, said Terry Halery, vice president of marketing at the craft beer tavern chain’s headquarters in Tampa, Fla. Members of the Henry family in Chattanooga, which owns the building, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The building at 412 Market St. has been in the news before, when it was home to Mosaic Church, which ran Club Fathom nearby at 400 Cherry St. where nine people were shot in 2011 after a Christmas Eve event at the all-ages club, an outreach ministry of the church.
While World of Beer’s closing left some Chattanoogans with hard feelings, customers who were there on the final night were treated to expensive craft beer for only $1 a bottle.
“We were told to liquidate stock,” Love said. “The exact quote from RKE was, ‘Sell everything for a dollar for all I care.’ And so we did that.”
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu @timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/ Meets For Business or twitter.com/meetfor business or 423-757-6651.