Rescued bar hit
Staff sue Wash. Hts. joint over wage theft
They went from drowning their sorrows to being drunk on power.
A year after community leaders and a Broadway star helped an iconic Manhattan bar get a reprieve from rising rents, workers have accused the owners in a lawsuit of stiffing them on wages and benefits.
Lawyers for Coogan’s, which has operated for 32 years in Washington Heights, and its workers are meeting with a state judge next month to seek approval on a back pay settlement agreement.
Although the owners admit no wrongdoing, servers and wait staff said the agreement affirms their complaints, and casts the sympathetic victim bar in a different light.
“They do not want the bad publicity,” said Mabel Pantaleon, who worked at Coogan’s for several months last year.
“One of the owners really treated us badly. He would yell in front of the customers, I guess karma really comes back to you.”
Twelve months ago, Coogan’s at Broadway at W. 169th St., was close to its last call when its landlord, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, wanted $40,000 more a month in rent.
Community leaders, elected officials and “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, a Coogan’s regular, interceded and helped the two sides work out a deal that kept the drinks flowing.
“With strong community support and hard work by our elected officials and intervention by the Miranda family the landlord has been moved and handshakes have been done,” the owners wrote on the restaurant’s Facebook page at the time, along with photos they took with Miranda.
Not pictured were disgruntled workers, who noted the irony of their bosses being championed as the little guys.
Workers, including dishwasher Noel Reyes, said Coogan’s owners took invalid meal credits from their wages, and failed to provide proper wage statements. And, instead of working full shifts, workers were regularly sent home in the middle of the day after busy hours, and not paid.
The suit also said the workers were denied overtime, in violation of state labor laws.