GLADSTONE, Mich. (WZMQ) – Staff of a Gladstone eatery say after receiving payment for two weeks of work, they were forced to close the doors. While they have since been compensated, one employee tells WZMQ 19 they do not plan to return.
Kelly Arndt took a job as a sous-chef at the Delona Restaurant in September. She says everything seemed fine until December 19, when the owner appeared to be “off a bit” one day at work.
“I thought he got overwhelmed or something, and we actually kicked him off the line because he was in no shape to be handling anything,” said Arndt. “That was our first inkling.”
Then, she says the owner did not show up for several days. While staff were able to keep the business running, Arndt says there was one thing they could not do—sign paychecks.
“That Thursday [December 26], he was supposed to be coming down to do payroll and never got there—or he was never there when we were there,” she said.
According to Arndt, the paychecks were expected by Thursday evening. Employees showed up to work on Friday, but she says the owner was “unavailable” to them when they tried to get answers.
“Then he would call at, like, 1:00 in the morning,” she said. “We were like, ‘What’s going on?’ I don’t know if he couldn’t get to it or what but he was like, ‘It’ll be there, it’ll be there.’ He started saying things like, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with these people and their passion for cooking.’ I said, ‘We all have a passion, but that doesn’t pay the mortgage. People need their money. People need to get paid.'”
Arndt says the staff finished the morning shift, then took a break before the 4 p.m. shift. However, having not received payment since December 12, she says no one wanted to return for the afternoon shift.
“They’re like, ‘If we didn’t get paid for the past two weeks, I’m not working now because this is going to be another week,'” she said. “I can’t blame anybody. I went back in on Saturday morning and got the call that nobody else was coming in, so I just closed because what am I going to do there all by myself?”
The restaurant has been closed since. Arndt and other employees took to social media to share their frustration with the situation. A friend of an employee even launched a GoFundMe and set up an account at Peninsula Federal Credit Union to raise money for them.
On the morning of January 3, Arndt told WZMQ 19 she finally received her paycheck. She says due to the late payment and lack of communication, she and other employees will not go back to work at the Delona.
“A lot of them have other jobs as well, but for a few of us this was our main job,” she said. “This was our only job. This is crazy. I’ve never had this happen in my 50 years of life.”
The individual who set up the GoFundMe and credit union account says he will be giving the funds raised to the employees’ manager to be distributed.
WZMQ 19 has reached out to the restaurant and the owner multiple times for comment, but no one has responded.
