Franchisee of Roosters restaurants will pay $500,000 in settlement with workers

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- The franchise operator of 11 Roosters restaurants in Ohio, including one in Columbus, has agreed to pay more than $500,000 in a settlement with some 1,800 workers who claimed they were underpaid.

A class action lawsuit was filed last March in federal court on behalf of Roosters workers who were employed by Chillicothe-based franchisee We Be Wings. The lawsuit asserted that workers being paid as tipped employees were made to do things that should have qualified them for higher wages as non-tipped employees.

Servers and bartenders were made to scrub toilets and clean other areas of the restaurant. They also saw their pay reduced if customers walked out or if alcoholic drinks were rung up wrong. And overtime was calculated as time-and-a-half at the tipped wage rate rather than at minimum wage, the lawsuit said.

Although helping with cleaning is legal in some cases with tipped employees, it's not if the work is seen as taking up more than 20% of an employee's time. The lawsuit also said some paycheck deductions were improper and that overtime was miscalculated.

In Ohio, tipped workers, whose duties primarily involve serving customers, are paid less per hour than those making minimum wage. The minimum pay rates adjust every year based on inflation. In 2024, it's $10.45 for non-tipped employees and $5.25 per hour for tipped employees.

A mediator met with both sides in August, and a settlement document was filed in December. In it, We Be Wings didn't admit to wrongdoing but agreed to pay $505,000 to settle all claims, with the lawsuit being dismissed. Those eligible for some amount include current and former servers and bartenders who worked for a Roosters operated by We Be Wings between 2020 and 2023.

Requests for comment from the attorneys who filed the lawsuit and from Roosters' corporate office went unreturned. Attempts to contact We Be Wings were unsuccessful.

State business filings show that Roosters is headquartered in Huber Heights, with its first location opening in 1988 in Dayton. It was founded by Bob and Corrine Frick, namesakes in Columbus of a heart disease center at Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center after they made an $18 million donation in 2017.

The Fricks were not named in the lawsuit and are not part of We Be Wings, which became a franchisee sometime around 2006 and now, under several subsidiaries, operates locations in:

• Chillicothe
• Columbus (Gemini Place)
• Mansfield
• Marysville
• New Albany
• Springfield
• Washington Court House
• Waverly
• Wilmington
• Xenia
• Zanesville

Overall, Roosters has 43 locations in four states, mostly in Ohio and Kentucky. Of those, 28 are operated by franchisees and the rest are corporate units.