The Abridged version:<\/p>\n
Kru Contemporary Japanese Cuisine, a star in Sacramento\u2019s restaurant scene, agreed Friday to pay $700,000 to settle a class action lawsuit filed by a former employee.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit alleged Kru employees routinely had their meal breaks cut short and had to perform work tasks during off-hours.<\/p>\n
Former employees will receive more than $400,000 from the suit, while the plaintiff\u2019s attorneys will collect $261,770.<\/p>\n
Kru Contemporary Japanese Cuisine<\/a> finalized an agreement Friday to pay $700,000 to settle former employees\u2019 class action lawsuit in Sacramento County Superior Court.<\/p>\n The Japanese restaurant, a star of Sacramento\u2019s dining scene, will pay 321 former employees a total of $402,979.83, according to court filings. It will also pay Jongbyuk \u201cPeter\u201d Kim, a former prep cook who brought the lawsuit forward, an additional $10,000 and will pay $261,770 to Ferraro Vega Employment Lawyers, the law firm representing Kim and the other class members.<\/p>\n Kim only worked at Kru from February through April 2024, according to his Private Attorneys General Act lawsuit filed that July. But during that time, he alleged, Kru supervisors made him perform work tasks such as completing onboarding forms and studying the restaurant\u2019s menu off the clock without pay.<\/p>\n \t\tSign Up for the City of Treats Newsletter<\/p>\n Get the latest Sacramento food news from Benjy Egel in City of Treats \u2014 delivered every Tuesday.<\/p>\n Kru employees also frequently had their own meal periods skipped, interrupted or shortened and were asked to sign \u201con-duty meal period\u201d waivers, according to Kim\u2019s lawsuit. These waivers are common in California restaurants; a server may sign one to continue waiting on a table and collect their tip, for example. Yet they\u2019re only allowed for employees working shifts shorter than six hours, or up to 12 hours if the employee previously took a 30-minute break.<\/p>\n Kim said an employee could have covered another\u2019s shift during those meal periods, and he accused Kru of relying on a company policy that said the restaurant wasn\u2019t obligated to pay premiums or provide additional break time when those periods were disrupted.<\/p>\n Kim also accused Kru of not paying employees the right amount of sick leave by not factoring in missed tips and not paying wages in a timely manner. Kru hourly employees from February 2020 through August 2025 were eligible to be included in the class.<\/p>\n Kru denied each of Kim\u2019s accusations in an August 2024 response to the court. But the two sides reached a preliminary agreement in January, which was finalized in court Friday. <\/p>\n \u201cFor more than 20 years, we have proudly served the Sacramento community,\u201d Kru owner Billy Ngo wrote in a text message to Abridged. \u201cWhile navigating evolving regulatory requirements can be challenging, we take our responsibilities seriously and are working diligently to address any concerns and ensure full compliance. We look forward to moving ahead and continuing to serve our employees, customers and community.\u201d<\/p>\n Kru must pay $300,000 within 10 days of the settlement\u2019s final approval Friday, according to court filings. The remaining $400,000 may be paid in quarterly installments up to September 2027.<\/p>\n Ngo founded Kru in Midtown Sacramento as a 23-year-old in 2005 and grew it into the city\u2019s premier sushi restaurant. It moved to its current, larger East Sacramento space at 3135 Folsom Blvd. in 2016 and added a to-go outpost in Garden at The Line in 2022. Ngo saw his personal star crescendo in 2024, when he became the region\u2019s first James Beard Award finalist for Best Chef \u2014 California.<\/a><\/p>\n Ngo bought out former Kru partners Jon Modrow and Kimio Bazett in 2021 after Modrow-Bazett Inc. allegedly siphoned money to support other restaurants unaffiliated with Kru, another matter that was resolved with a settlement. Kru\u2019s sister restaurants include Kodaiko Ramen & Bar<\/a>, Fish Face Poke & Bar<\/a> and Chu Mai.<\/a><\/p>\n Benjy Egel\u00a0is the senior food editor at Abridged. Born and raised in the Sacramento region, he has covered its local restaurants and bars since 2018. He also writes and edits Abridged\u2019s weekly\u00a0food and drink newsletter,\u00a0City of Treats.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Abridged version: Kru Contemporary Japanese Cuisine, a star in Sacramento\u2019s restaurant scene, agreed Friday to pay $700,000…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-359435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359435","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=359435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}