CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. -- An Alabama-based restaurant chain, with locations in Chesterfield and Henrico Counties, will pay employees more than $130,000 in back wages after an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor.
The investigation found that Taziki’s Restaurants LLC, which operates three Taziki’s Mediterranean Café restaurants in Central Virginia, violated overtime and recordkeeping provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
The locations named in the investigation includes Taziki’s Mediterranean Café restaurants located at 4024 Cox Rd-C in Glen Allen, 12643 Stone Village Way in Midlothian, and 14221 Hull Street Road in Chesterfield.
The company has a total of 14 restaurants in Alabama, Georgia, and Virginia.
Taziki's Mediterranean Cafe Glen Allen
The investigation discovered that the restaurants failed to combine the hours that individual employees worked at multiple locations in the same workweek to determine whether overtime was due.
Instead, the restaurant paid employees individual checks for their work at each location, even when employee’s combined hours totaled more than 40 hours in a workweek.
In addition, investigators say the company did not pay employees for the time they spent traveling between restaurants to perform work.
Taziki’s Restaurants LLC will now pay $135,844 to 26 employees to resolve the FLSA violations.
“The resolution of this case puts these wages into the hands of those who earned them, and demonstrates how Department of Labor enforcement levels the playing field for law-abiding employers,” said Kenneth Stripling, Wage and Hour Division District Director. “We encourage all employers to make use of the many tools our agency offers to help them understand their obligations and to avoid violations.”
