Monday, October 3, 2016

Report: Avenue B's Babu Ji settles wage lawsuit

The owners of Babu Ji, the popular Indian restaurant on Avenue B at 11th Street, have reportedly settled a wage lawsuit from employees for $95,000.

Eater has the story late this afternoon:

Notorious restaurant labor attorney Maimon Kirschenbaum sued Jessi and Jennifer Singh on behalf of two employees for pocketing tips and not paying overtime. Last week, the Singhs agreed to pay employees Warren Bayani and Mehmood Qureshi a total of $95,000, split almost evenly between the two of them and Kirschenbaum. The owners did not admit any wrongdoing in the settlement, according to public court records.

Read the full story at Eater.

Babu Ji opened in June 2015. The owners are planning to open a location in San Francisco.

16 comments:

Gojira said...

So glad I never ate in this overpriced, over-hyped place. Go back to Australia, you disgusting thieves.

Trixie said...

That's an awful lot of money to steal from two people in such a short time. And the lawyer gets a third of it? Oh well, it's better than a kick in the pants I guess.

Anonymous said...

Why do they call the lawyer "notorious"? That is a lot of money for one year of work, but if you don't pay overtime you are potentially liable for liquidated damages, which means you can end up paying DOUBLE the amount of wages actually owed.

Michael Ivan said...

Settling without guilt can be cheaper than a dragged out case / trial / attorney fees. Now I admit the food is overpriced and the scene is plastic loudness, but this seems more like the dirty work of a plaintiff's attorney. If there was any real merit more employees would have hopped on.

Anonymous said...

"The owners did not admit any wrongdoing in the settlement" so was this a shake down from a shyster lawyer or were the owners breaking the labor laws and in addition withholding tip money?

Anonymous said...

Ive worked as a waiter in several restaurants here in manhattan where ownership and management commit this crime, yet deny and cover it up with lies and bullshit. It is fucked up and wrong. I am glad these two individuals were compensated. Many never come forward and remain victims of someone's greed. Good for them! Justice prevails.

Anonymous said...

I was excited when this place opened until I saw the high prices. I just got one more reason not to eat here.

Morgan Tsvangirai said...

My partner and I try most new restaurants that open in the neighborhood, but after looking at the menu and reading yelp reviews, we decided not to try this one. Consensus seems to be mediocre and overpriced.

This disgusting behavior on the part of the owners means we definitely won't ever be going here.

Anonymous said...

@8:33 am: Why presume dirty work by the plaintiff's attorney? The other side NEVER admits guilt when you settle. As far as hopping on, other staff might not be interested for various reasons, such as not wanting to risk their jobs. Or perhaps they settled with the Singhs without a lawyer. Or maybe no one else had significant unpaid overtime. You don't know. It's HIGHLY UNLIKELY that Kirscenbaum and two employees simply decided that they were going to scam the Singhs out of money they weren't owed by filing a frivolous lawsuit. If the Singhs had proof that they paid the servers for all their hours worked there would be little reason for them to settle for $95K, which is not an amount you pay to be done with a nuisance claim.

Check, please! said...

This place will now forever be known as Babu Gyp.

Anonymous said...

My friend and I finally ate dinner at this place a couple of weeks ago. We had been dying to go but every time we walked by it was so busy, so we were happy to get in. But I was immediately turned off by our waiter. Right away he started telling us--with a big smile--how he had to order the Chef's Menu. When I saw the price--it was $62!--I knew I couldn't afford it. He walked away and came back and took our order and his smile and fake friendliness disappeared when we ordered two regular entrees. From that point on, he had no interest in being nice to us. And the food was okay. It wasn't great. So I will go back to eating at the more affordable and friendly Indian restaurants on 6th Street.

Anonymous said...

This is why I always tip delivery guys in cash: so the owners can't screw them over.

Anonymous said...

Wage theft by employers is in the billions of dollars per year. It's the owners who are notorious, not the workers' lawyers.

thepassionateone said...

Do you realize that when you blame "plaintiff's lawyers" you are spewing propaganda you absorbed by the Bush administration? An employer who has been in business for a little over one year does not pay $100K over a "frivolous" lawsuit. And all settlement agreements contain a "no admission of liability" clause. The payment speaks for itself. Without lawyers taking these cases, you would see endless rampant abuses by employers. With respect to the attorneys getting paid, let me ask you: do you get paid for your job?

Anonymous said...

This happens a lot unfortunately. I worked at a restaurant in the west village which took over 45k from myself and other waiters tips over a two year period. We all kept a log and confronted him and the owner.

The owner knew the manager was taking close to 200 a night and said nothing. He shrugged his shoulders and expected us to work on holidays and late nights for shit. This guy was salaried and continued to steal our tips, which was our only source of pay. Luckily, he was eventually fired for hitting a customer. But it sucked we all lost out.

I wish I hadn't been young or naive then. Otherwise, I would have taken legal action and gone after him with a vengeance. Good luck to those who won their suit.

Anonymous said...

http://ny.eater.com/2016/10/11/13242892/babu-ji-wage-lawsuit-nyc

Here are two more employees coming out