Around a dozen employees at Fresno\u2019s Horn Barbecue have quit in the weeks after the restaurant opened, claiming unpaid wages.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Horn Barbecue says the pay issues are temporary because it was delayed in opening.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The big picture: McClatchy first reported that some employees at Horn Barbecue, located at Granite Park in central Fresno, have quit due to not getting paid.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One former employee told The Sun that around a dozen employees have left the restaurant because of wage theft in just the several weeks that the establishment has actually been open.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Flashback: Matt Horn opened Horn Barbecue in Fresno in January, coming back to his home town after launching restaurants in the Bay Area.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Zoom in: Former Horn Barbecue dishwasher Jonathan Franco told The Sun that he quit his job because the restaurant did not pay him all of his wages that were owed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Franco started working at Horn Barbecue on Jan. 24, a shift that he later learned was a working interview. Franco said he was ultimately never paid for his first day of work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Franco received his first paycheck in February, it bounced, leading the restaurant to later give him a cashier\u2019s check.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the payment issues continued, with Franco resigning from his position on Feb. 23.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Franco submitted a wage theft complaint to the state Labor Commissioner\u2019s Office in February. He said he is owed 51 hours of pay, as well as over $350 in tips that were taken from his paycheck.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What he\u2019s saying: \u201cI don\u2019t think bad about [Horn.] I\u2019m a little bit sour,\u201d Franco told The Sun. \u201cI hope he pulls to it and he doesn\u2019t do this in the future to anybody else. I doubt it, because he does have a track record, but I don\u2019t wish him bad, I don\u2019t. This leaves a sour taste in my mouth, what they did.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Horn\u2019s response: \u201cHorn Barbecue acknowledges that the delayed opening of our Fresno restaurant created financial challenges that led to payroll delays for some employees,\u201d the restaurant told McClatchy. \u201cWe take this matter seriously and are actively working to resolve outstanding payments as quickly as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Horn\u2019s statement continued, \u201cOur team members are the heart of this restaurant, and we remain committed to stabilizing operations and honoring our obligations while continuing to serve the Fresno community. Like many independent restaurants, opening a new location can come with unexpected challenges. Our focus now is clear: addressing outstanding obligations, supporting our staff, and continuing to build a restaurant that Fresno can be proud of.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Zoom out: The wage theft claims at the newly-opened Fresno location is the latest issue for Horn\u2019s restaurants.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Horn opened his first restaurant in Oakland in 2020, quickly leading to fame when he was named in the Best New Chefs issue of Food & Wine within his first year in business.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Horn expanded his restaurant business to another Oakland location, one in Lafayette and another in Elk Grove. All of those restaurants have been shut down, and the original Oakland spot was destroyed in a 2023 fire, which Horn declared to be arson.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Problems started coming to light in 2022 when former employees accused Horn of wage theft, coupled with lawsuits from a meat vendor and another from employees alleging unsafe work conditions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Lafayette location reportedly had an eviction notice on its door and had its liquor license suspended. The property owner for the Elk Grove location told the San Francisco Chronicle that Horn had several months of unpaid rent.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Around a dozen employees at Fresno\u2019s Horn Barbecue have quit in the weeks after the restaurant opened, claiming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-221464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}