{"id":369841,"date":"2026-06-22T05:33:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T05:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/369841\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T05:33:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T05:33:14","slug":"fresno-city-attorney-opens-probe-into-unpaid-wages-after-horn-bbqs-abrupt-closure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/369841\/","title":{"rendered":"Fresno City Attorney opens probe into unpaid wages after Horn BBQ&#8217;s abrupt closure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Fresno City Attorney\u2019s Office is investigating multiple claims of unpaid wages after a local barbecue restaurant, Horn BBQ, shut down and was evicted from its location just five months after opening.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The restaurant, which boasted multiple locations across northern California before its entry into Fresno, has come under withering financial trouble and a rash of closings. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The backstory: Horn BBQ\u2019s owner, Matt Horn, grew up in Fresno before gaining national recognition and returning to open his fourth restaurant\u2014the first in the Central Valley\u2014in January.<\/p>\n<p>In March, trouble surfaced at a pair of his locations. <\/p>\n<p>Horn\u2019s Lafayette location reportedly had an eviction notice on its door and had its liquor license suspended. <\/p>\n<p>The property owner for the Elk Grove location told the San Francisco Chronicle that Horn had several months of unpaid rent.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Horn had a similar eviction notice at his Fresno location near Granite Park earlier this month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Driving the news: Santino Capps, a Fresno State student and former employee, <a href=\"https:\/\/kmph.com\/news\/local\/fresno-city-attorney-investigates-unpaid-wage-claims-after-local-bbq-business-shuts-down\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">told KMPH Fox 26<\/a> his experience at Horn BBQ quickly soured when his first paycheck bounced. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThings started becoming a little weird, my first paycheck ended up bouncing on me,\u201d Capps said. He was eventually paid in cash, but said subsequent checks also bounced.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt took like almost about a week until they Venmoed me my last check,\u201d said Capps, who said he pushed to be paid for his work. The payroll issues reportedly coincided with the business\u2019s eviction.<\/p>\n<p>The California Department of Industrial Relations confirmed that 11 wage claims have been filed against Horn Barbecue at its Oakland, Sacramento and Fresno locations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What they\u2019re saying: The Fresno City Attorney\u2019s Office said the matter is under investigation after the case was referred by the state agency. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe case was referred to our office by the state and an investigation is ongoing. We don\u2019t have a further comment while the investigation is pending,\u201d an office spokesperson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fresno City Attorney\u2019s Office is investigating multiple claims of unpaid wages after a local barbecue restaurant, Horn&hellip;\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-369841","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\/369841","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=369841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369841\/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=369841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}