Check, please

In February, a judge ordered RCR [owner of Galileo III] to pay $137,693.98 in back rent, and in June, [building owner] SRI filed an official writ of restitution to evict Galileo III…. Chef de cuisine Claudio Sandri, who also cooked for Donna at Bebo Trattoria, was the first high-profile employee to go; he departed around November to take a job in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Contract pastry chefs Wendi James and Joshua Jarvis decided to split in late December. Night manager Walter Gianfranchi and hostess Maria Baldo left in March. Bar manager and beverage director Chris Cunningham said goodbye in April. Other waiters and cooks followed suit.

Cunningham had to push management for his paychecks. They always had excuses for why they couldn’t pay, he said. When he did get a check, typically handwritten, Cunningham was frequently told either to cash it right then or to wait for a specific day.
But even when told what day to cash it, Cunningham would sometimes discover there wasn’t enough money in the account to cover his check and the others issued for the same day. Experience taught him to rush to the bank on the assigned cashing day to make sure he’d be among the first to get paid. “I’d get my check, and I’d [race] across the street and cash it,” said Cunningham…. “They were holding you hostage on every paycheck,” pastry chef James said flatly.

The frustration over paychecks sometimes led to dramatic measures by the staff. They would threaten to quit or not come in to work until management cut them a check. The cooks and dishwashers also had another way to rebel, said James: They would leave the kitchen a mess at the end of their shift. “It was the dirtiest kitchen I ever worked in,” she said. “The line cooks were like, ‘If I wasn’t getting paid, I wouldn’t clean [the kitchen].’ ”