Trouble is multiplying for the operator of 17 Houlihan’s restaurants in New Jersey and New York, which was accused in a suit by the U.S. Department of Labor of illegally pocketing a portion of servers’ and bartenders’ tips.
The suit, with Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez as plaintiff, claims A.C.E. Restaurant Group required employees to contribute a percentage of their tips to a pool to be distributed to non-tipped workers. But rather than distributing all of those funds among the staff, the company retained some of the money in its own coffers, in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the suit claims.
