ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Gringos Locos, a well-known Central Florida restaurant, closed all four of its locations a few weeks ago, leaving 64 employees suddenly without work and still waiting for full final pay and PTO payouts.<\/p>\n
Philip O\u2019Biso, one of the owners, declined to go on camera but said an ongoing legal battle with his co-owners has led to financial distress for the company. He said he is trying to sell equipment as quickly as possible to raise money to finish paying employees.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Biso said all employees have received at least 25% of their final paycheck, but there is no timeline for when they will receive full payment. He said he does plan to pay them.<\/p>\n
Patrick Montgomery-Webb, a former manager at Gringos Locos, said the closure was abrupt.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was sudden, it was too sudden to prepare,\u201d Montgomery-Webb said.<\/p>\n
Montgomery-Webb worked at Gringos Locos for two-and-a-half years. He said he was able to find another job but had to take a pay cut.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith my wife and I, it has been day by day, week by week,\u201d Montgomery-Webb said. \u201cWe have a GoFundMe, just to try to make ends meet.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said employees have been communicating with one another and trying to help each other through the situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow many families are one paycheck away from catastrophe? And 60 families have just hit that,\u201d Montgomery-Webb said.<\/p>\n
Jennifer Englert, managing partner at Orlando Law Group, said employees who are not paid should take several steps, starting with reporting unpaid wages to law enforcement.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo not pay employees is a violation of several different laws, federal and state,\u201d Englert said.<\/p>\n
Englert said employees should also contact their county\u2019s labor board to report the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere often are a bunch of funds that people aren\u2019t aware of, but you certainly won\u2019t get it if you don\u2019t make those reports to the authorities,\u201d Englert said.<\/p>\n
She said workers should also file for unemployment and seek help with finding another job. CareerSource Central Florida said it often works with employees affected by small-business closures and can help with resume writing, new certifications and job searches.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it comes to smaller businesses, they may not know they are ready to close, so therefore we can\u2019t engage them nearly as early,\u201d said Gustavo Henriquez with CareerSource Central Florida. \u201cSo their need becomes much more dire and much more immediate.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Biso said managers were told only a day or two before the closures. Montgomery-Webb called the situation \u201cvery unprofessional\u201d and said employees are still looking for answers as they wait to be paid in full.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Gringos Locos, a well-known Central Florida restaurant, closed all four of its locations a few…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2031,558,115,1335,139,141,140,9429,14104],"class_list":["post-383000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-local-business","tag-business","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-sarah-winkelmann","tag-topic-latest-local-business-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}