The French Laundry, the three-Michelin-starred restaurant run by renowned chef Thomas Keller, has been sued by a former employee who alleges wage theft and other labor law violations at the Yountville, Calif., eatery.
The lawsuit, brought by Elena Flores Beteta, who worked as a dishwasher at the restaurant for three years starting in 2022, alleges that The French Laundry Restaurant Corporation and Thomas Keller Restaurant Group violated labor laws by failing to pay minimum wage or overtime hours, as well as neglecting to provide mandatory rest breaks or access to proper rest facilities or break rooms.
“Plaintiff was required to work around the clock, worked without compensation during meal and rest periods, received pay stubs that failed to accurately reflect her hours and premium pay, and was not paid final pay upon separation,” the complaint states.
Bettata’s lawsuit, brought by a private attorney and filed last week in Napa County Superior Court, seeks more than $35,000 in damages, civil penalties and attorney fees.
Thomas Keller Restaurant Group said in an emailed statement that it was not aware of the lawsuit until the Press Democrat reported on it. A spokesperson for the restaurant said that the allegations in the lawsuit are the first such claims made in the restaurant’s 48-year history, that they are “based on inaccurate, unfounded information” and that the lawsuit is a “frivolous, attention-seeking filing.”
The restaurant group said, “Other than this one employee, no other French Laundry employee has raised any issues regarding underpayment. The fact is that The French Laundry is in full compliance with all California employment laws. We look forward to proving that this one employee’s lawsuit has no merit.”
Supervisors allegedly sent Betetta and her co-workers back to their workplaces three to four times per week to complete cleaning after they had already taken the day off, the lawsuit states. The lawsuit says additional cleaning of walls, cleaning floors and removing accumulated food waste from the dishwasher typically took five to 10 minutes and that workers were not allowed to return to record unpaid time off.
The lawsuit alleges that meal breaks were “often interrupted” when Betta was called back by a supervisor to clean buckets or dispose of trash.
The lawsuit was filed as a representative action on behalf of BETTA as well as an estimated 50 potential current and former employees through a unique California law called the Private Attorneys General Act, or PAGA, which gives workers the ability to sue employers on behalf of themselves, other employees, and the state of California over workplace violations.
PAGA claims do not require the same type of notification and certification for allegedly affected workers that a typical class-action suit requires.
The law was reformed through a legislative deal in 2024 after a pressure campaign from business groups who said the law was being exploited by predatory lawyers as a cash grab. The reforms have made it more difficult to demand huge payouts from a company. If companies can show they are trying to correct violations by paying workers back wages and agreeing to change abusive practices, the law keeps penalties low.
Workers represented by private attorneys are limited to seeking penalties only for labor code violations that they have personally experienced. Nonprofit legal organizations have more leeway to impose penalties for other allegations made by experienced employees, even if the individual employee named in the lawsuit did not personally experience them all.
