{"id":268118,"date":"2026-04-14T23:45:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T23:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/268118\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T23:45:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T23:45:08","slug":"ex-employees-allege-toxic-workplace-at-localis-and-betty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/268118\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-employees allege toxic workplace at Localis and Betty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following a social media firestorm<\/a>, former staff of the restaurants Localis and Betty Wine Bar + Bistro are detailing to The Sacramento Bee allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior, belittlement and wage tampering by chef Chris Barnum-Dann, with one describing him as manipulative and \u201cabusive in all kinds of ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barnum-Dann is a rising star in the food industry. He\u2019s the chef and creative force behind Localis, the Michelin-starred restaurant in midtown. He took over Betty in 2024. And last year, he received<\/a> Michelin\u2019s California 2025 Sommelier Award.<\/p>\n

Most recently, he\u2019s looking to expand. He announced plans in March to open four new properties<\/a> in Sacramento, including three at the new Tower Broadway building at 1600 Broadway. According to KVIE\u2019s Abridged news site, the developers behind that project are \u201ctaking a pause\u201d<\/a> in light of the allegations, though they weren\u2019t as definitive about that when asked for comment by The Bee.<\/p>\n

While many were eager to speak out on social media and in interviews after the expansion plans were announced, few were willing to go on the record by name \u2014 either to criticize or support Barnum-Dann. In a statement provided to The Bee on April 8, chef Barnum-Dann<\/a> called the accusations \u201cbaseless\u201d and noting, from his perspective, \u201cthey stem from events that allegedly occurred between 2018 to 2020.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stories of harassment are not uncommon in professional kitchens. Accusations of physical and emotional abuse have recently surfaced against Rene Redzepi of Noma<\/a>, the world\u2019s top-rated restaurant. After the Sacramento allegations became public over the weekend<\/a>, Barnum-Dann told The Bee he knows he \u201cpushed people in ways that were not always constructive and (he) regrets that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the course of The Bee\u2019s investigation, five people shared their experiences on the record. Former chefs and front-of-house staff, from both restaurants, recounted their experiences spanning from Localis\u2019 opening in 2015 to interactions at Betty as recent as 2025.<\/p>\n

The Bee provided a list of their specific allegations to Barnum-Dann. He responded that he takes \u201cresponsibility for his actions\u201d without addressing most of the allegations directly.<\/p>\n

Allegations span nearly a decade<\/p>\n

Jennifer Millsap attended culinary school with Barnum-Dann from 2009 to 2011 at the now-defunct Art Institute in Sacramento. She was among the opening crew for Localis, working the wood fire station next to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the beginning, the idea of what we were trying to create was amazing, but it just quickly became a very toxic environment,\u201d Millsap said. \u201cThere\u2019s no boundaries whatsoever, no leadership in terms of knowing what\u2019s appropriate, what\u2019s not appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the restaurant\u2019s early days, Millsap became romantically involved with another staffer, who left the restaurant after their relationship crumbled.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Barnum-Dann) started calling me the \u2018black widow.\u2019 Like when any guy would come to Localis, I would kill them off. So he started just treating me really poorly, not giving me the same opportunities,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Millsap later developed a relationship with another employee. They\u2019re still together and have a child.<\/p>\n

According to Millsap, Barnum-Dann saw the two talking.<\/p>\n

\u201c(He) is so paranoid that he actually called us outside to have a conversation with him, because he thought we were talking about him. We were like, \u2018no, actually, this doesn\u2019t have anything to do with you,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Still, his attitude toward her continued to sour, Millsap said. It culminated in an outburst during a meeting after one dinner service. The name of Millsap\u2019s earlier boyfriend came up in conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd (Barnum-Dann) literally screams at the top of his lungs in front of everyone, \u2018then, why did you f— him?\u2019\u201d Millsap said.<\/p>\n

While embarrassed, Millsap said she was never sexually harassed. But she observed behavior that made her uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the games he would play while people would walk by (the restaurant\u2019s windows) would be to rate them, to talk about their physical appearance,\u201d she said. \u201cHe would refer to people\u2019s backsides as their \u2018cake.\u2019 And he was rating people\u2019s cake. And just always judging, always, always just making really terrible comments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Millsap left in 2016.<\/p>\n

Allegedly drove staff to tears<\/p>\n

Larrissa Liberko worked at Localis from 2018 to 2020. She was the one who mirrored the initial Reddit post onto Instagram<\/a> to amplify its message. Liberko said she and other coworkers struggled in that environment over time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I started, I was early in my career and eager to learn,\u201d she said. \u201cAt the time, I overlooked certain behaviors that I would not accept today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liberko said she was spoken to harshly in front of others on multiple occasions, including one instance that prompted a guest to intervene, telling Barnum-Dann not to speak to her that way.<\/p>\n

Barnum-Dann\u2019s behavior would frequently drive staff to tears, including her, she said. Once, he reportedly said he liked when he could \u201cbreak someone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liberko said she witnessed Barnum-Dann physically bend a sous chef over a table by pushing her head and subject her to sexualized physical contact in front of others. She said she witnessed multiple other instances of unwanted sexual comments, touching and propositions \u2014 including repeated comments about employees\u2019 bodies and requests involving threesomes with his wife.<\/p>\n

She said Barnum-Dann and his wife\u2019s relationship was discussed openly in the workplace in ways that made staff uncomfortable. Liberko said in one incident, Barnum-Dann and his wife went into the restaurant building\u2019s garage and returned looking flushed, after which he announced to staff, \u201cI just smashed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Says the chef triggered PTSD-related anxiety<\/p>\n

Justin MacClanahan said he approached Barnum-Dann in 2021, looking to expand his skill set in the kitchen. A former co-owner with his wife Jennifer of the now-defunct Br\u00fc Co. Taproom, MacClanahan was not new to professional kitchens.<\/p>\n

He is also an Army veteran with PTSD, which he said disclosed to Barnum-Dann.<\/p>\n

Due to his physical and emotional restrictions, MacClanahan said he wasn\u2019t looking to work the grueling shifts required of line chefs. He just wanted to learn from a more refined kitchen.<\/p>\n

Barnum-Dann initially brought him on as a prep cook for six hours a day in the morning and early afternoon. Within days, he MacClanahan said he was moved onto the line when one of the other chefs didn\u2019t show up for work.<\/p>\n

He said he was asked to do tasks he was not yet trained on, then berated for not knowing how to do them. It triggered MacClanahan\u2019s PTSD-related anxiety, which would make him stammer.<\/p>\n

This aggravated Barnum-Dann, according to MacClanahan, telling him, \u201coh, you\u2019re so weird man. Like, why don\u2019t you f—— just say something like a normal person?\u201d<\/p>\n

MacClanahan said Barnum-Dann also belittled his military experience, repeatedly referring to it as his \u201clittle soldier thing\u201d or \u201clittle army thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

When directly asked to comment on MacClanahan\u2019s reported experience, Barnum-Dann said he has \u201ca deep respect for anyone that has served in the military.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018It was always a roller coaster with him\u2019<\/p>\n

Diego Garcia was a contemporary of MacClanahan in the Localis kitchen. He said he also experienced Barnum-Dann\u2019s volatility.<\/p>\n

Barnum-Dann would fly into rages, he said, if line cooks made mistakes \u2014 yelling at them and having them step off the line to reprimand them.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe once burst out of the back door with such fury he ended up breaking the metal swing door and left us to handle service,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was always a roller coaster with him. In a way it was mental warfare going into work dreading, was he going to be in a good mood or was he going to go off?\u201d<\/p>\n

Garcia also corroborated Barnum-Dann\u2019s repeated sexualized comments to staffers. He said Barnum-Dann made comments that women were lesser \u201cbecause they came with a slit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Chris Chris Barnum-Dann, the owner of Betty Wine Bar & Bottle Shop in Southside Park, prepares a Betty salad on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. Barnum-Dann, the chef and owner of the Michelin-starred Localis restaurant, took over the bistro in December 2024. Hector Amezcua hamezcua@sacbee.com <\/p>\n

Zayn Skinner started at Betty Wine Bar + Bistro the year before Barnum-Dann took it over, in late 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne shift, three of us were male coworkers in the front of house. (Barnum-Dann) walked up, and most of the clientele was mostly female. He says, \u2018you guys must be walking erections right now.\u2019 And I walked away,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Both Skinner and Garcia also said there were instances Barnum-Dann would smoke cannabis in Localis and Betty.<\/p>\n

Skinner said Barnum-Dann would smoke cannabis in the kitchen while cooking. He\u2019d also stay in the dining room late in the evening smoking at the tables to where Skinner said, \u201cyou open the next day, and then you\u2019ve got to, like, air out the place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skinner left Betty in 2025.<\/p>\n

Pay transparency issues go back to at least 2019<\/p>\n

Skinner said one of the first changes Barnum-Dann announced to the Betty staff was moving to a tip pool policy. Both the kitchen and management would be paid out of the pool and the managers would also receive a pay raise.<\/p>\n

The Fair Labor Standards Act expressly prohibits employers, including managers and supervisors,<\/a> from keeping employees\u2019 tips.<\/p>\n

Skinner went on paternity leave in 2025, at which point he left Betty. Then, he filed a complaint with the California Labor Commissioner\u2019s Office. When this got back to Barnum-Dann, he backpedaled on the tipping policy and said he would issue checks for back tips, Skinner said.<\/p>\n

Skinner presented an accounting statement to The Bee and said both the amount of hours and tip wage were arbitrary, coming to about $2.70 per hour. Barnum-Dann sent checks to all employees, past and present, affected.<\/p>\n

However, Skinner said the staff were told they would receive a $2-per-hour-pay-cut as a result of the reapportioning of the tips \u2014 and that anyone who didn\u2019t like it could leave.<\/p>\n

Barnum-Dann addressed those pay issues<\/a> in his April 8 statement to The Bee. He said the restaurant \u201cidentified a tipping issue.\u201d And he said he was cooperating with the Labor Commissioner to resolve the \u201csingle administrative claim.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former employees Liberko and Garcia said tipping transparency issues arose at Localis when they worked there.<\/p>\n

Liberko noted one from March 11, 2019. She retained the \u201cburrito sheet\u201d \u2014 an accounting slip for each cover \u2014 and receipt from a service showing a $2,000 tip on a large table. The burrito sheet included handwritten notes indicating that $500 was taken out of that tip for the split between back of house \u2014 kitchen staff \u2014 and front of house \u2014 servers and host. But no further breakdown accounted for the remaining amount.<\/p>\n

Garcia also highlighted pay issues. He recalled a private event from his time working at Localis between September 2019 and January 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember where the host came up to (Barnum-Dann) and handed him a stack of hundreds and said to tip us out $1,000 each. We never saw a dime,\u201d he said. \u201cHe would claim that this tip money was going into a \u2018dream fund\u2019 toward a Michelin-starred restaurant that we wanted to go to. None of the employees knew how much of our tips were being put in said fund. We dined at Quince<\/a>, a great experience. Yet, we were so brainwashed we hadn\u2019t realized that we in fact had paid for this meal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barnum-Dann denied these accounts happened. \u201cI have never taken tips,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Pushback, reaction, what\u2019s next<\/p>\n

In light of the controversy, a handful of employees at Betty issued a statement<\/a>, distancing themselves from Barnum-Dann.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are disappointed to learn about the news, and frankly, we are not interested in defending him, or offering an opposing opinion to anyone\u2019s experience,\u201d it said. \u201cWe don\u2019t care to speak on Chef Chris, because to us, he\u2019s not Betty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not everyone said they had negative experiences with Barnum-Dann. Several people stepped forward in his defense, though nearly all did so after Barnum-Dann became aware of this reporting.<\/p>\n

Anderson Sutton was a contemporary of Millsap\u2019s as part of the opening crew in 2015. By his account, working at Localis was a career highlight.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of us would go and hang out after work. We were like a family. The restaurant environment felt more like a family rather than a job. We were really close-knit, wonderful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Sean Bier worked at Localis for three years, including when it received its star in 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cWas it always easy to work there? Of course not,\u201d he said. \u201cDid he sometimes get upset that we weren\u2019t up to par and ask us to be better? Sure did. Was he ever abusive? Not in the slightest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramon Gonzalez describes his three years there from 2022 to 2025 as \u201cthe highlight of (his) career in the restaurant industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI often observed (Barnum-Dann) teaching and mentoring the cooks on the fundamentals of knife skills, seasoning and temperature,\u201d he said. \u201cI saw several employees achieve their \u2018dream job\u2019 or career goal: A glassware polisher became a bar manager, a line cook became lead pastry chef and an intern became a lead server.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the face of the allegations and with future projects in the balance, Barnum-Dann said he is doing the work to create a better environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had some significant personal changes that happened over a half a decade ago, and since then I have made meaningful changes in how I lead, communicate, and support my team,\u201d Barnum-Dann said. \u201cThe growth took time, but we have built the restaurants\u2019 culture into something that the team and I are proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether the allegations will affect Barnum-Dann\u2019s expansion into retail units at the new Tower Broadway building are unclear. The Abridged story said that the developers working with Barnum-Dann are \u201ctaking a pause\u201d<\/a> on their business relationship with the chef.<\/p>\n

Jon Gianulias, who heads Core Commercial, the developer behind the project, declined to confirm the report. He would say only in an email to The Bee, \u201cAllegations are vague. I have no comment as I don\u2019t know anything about what occurred or didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was originally published April 14, 2026 at 3:15 PM.<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Sean Timberlake<\/a><\/p>\n

The Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n

Sean Timberlake is the food and dining reporter for The Sacramento Bee. He has been writing professionally for nearly 30 years, and about food for 20. A variety of well-known outlets have published his work, including Food Network, Cooking Channel, CNN, Sunset Magazine and SF Weekly.\u00a0\n <\/p>\n