The Paramount – Memphis Flyer

Workers at four Memphis restaurants, including Earnestine & Hazel’s, sued the owners to recover alleged unpaid minimum wage and overtime.

In March, an attorney filed three separate suits against Local in Memphis, the parent company of The Vault, Earnestine & Hazel’s, The Paramount, and The Backlot Sandwich Shop. The suits claim three different classes of employees — servers and bartenders, managers, and one cook — are owed unpaid wages, legal fees, and more. They all list Local in Memphis co-owner Tyson Bridge as the point person for the company.

In the suit involving the servers and bartenders, the suit claims the company did not tell the employees they were working under a tip-compensation plan. This system is a way for companies to include an employee’s tips toward the employer’s minimum wage requirements, according to human resources company Paychex, Inc.

Attorneys for the servers and bartenders said the Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA) puts “strict requirements” on companies using the tip credit system. In the case of Local in Memphis, these “requirements were not met.”

For one, the employees were not told by the company they were working under the system. For this, the servers and bartenders were working for $2.13 per hour, the required minimum wage for tipped employees, instead of the $7.25 regular minimum wage. The employees are entitled to the difference for those hours worked, the lawsuit says.

Also, these servers and bartenders were made to do “dual occupation” work and side work like cleaning bathrooms, stocking ice, sweeping, cutting fruit, polishing silverware, and more. These jobs do not allow the employees to make tips while they are paid below the minimum wage. Labor law allows tipped employees to do some of this work. But the suit says Local in Memphis made their employees do more, violating federal law.

“For example, plaintiff [Amanda] Levitch was required to clean up a vomit-filled sink during one of her shifts (and while being paid at a reduced tip-credit rate of pay),” reads the suit.

The company runs its restaurants as one entity and co-mingled its staff and management, the suit says. The employees would work at the different locations and their work hours would sometimes meet or exceed 40 hours. Federal law says employees working more than 40 hours must be paid time-and-a-half.

The suit claims, though, that the restaurant owners counted the employees’ time at each restaurant, “in order to maintain a façade that plaintiffs were working less than 40 hours per week.” The owners failed to pay overtime to the employees because they did not calculate overtime based on all hours worked for the company when they worked multiple restaurant locations in the same week.

“[The restaurant owners] were, in reality, one operation that was divided into multiple entities to support the fiction that they are not joint employers and/or an integrated enterprise,” reads the suit.

The second and third suits cover restaurant managers and a cook. They claim the restaurant owners used the same scheme to avoid paying them overtime they deserved.

For this and more, the servers and bartenders, managers, and the cook, all seek alleged unpaid compensation. The servers and bartenders want compensation for unpaid minimum wages. All of the groups want compensation for unpaid overtime, liquid damages (a pre-determined money award), legal fees, attorney fees, and jury trials to get them all.

In the March filing, the employees were not able to say exactly how much money they were owed, but thought the information may come out in the legal process. In these cases, the amounts of hours and money can be determined through the employees’ testimony, but the burden of proof is ultimately on the employer.

Another Look at The Paramount, Slated to Open This Month

Twenty-two stars arch around Utah’s Ben Lomond peak on the Paramount Pictures logo. They stood for the number of actors and actresses who originally contracted to work for the studio.

I learned that on Google.

About 50 stars are on the ceiling above the granite-topped bar at The Paramount, the new bar/restaurant slated to open in July at 265 South Front.

I learned that from Mac Edwards, consultant for the 4,800 square-foot restaurant, which was used as the law office on the TV series, Bluff City Law.

And they are supposed to be stars, Edwards says. “That’s the effect.”

“Stars” will shine on bar patrons at The Paramount. (Credit: Michael Donahue)

I recently got another sneak peek at The Paramount, which is owned by the restaurant’s chef, Derk Meitzler, and I’m astounded. It’s absolutely beautiful.

Describing what they wanted the place to be, Edwards says, “Elegant, but not stuffy. We don’t want to be clubby.”

Project manager Tony Gooch, who came in “to do the final work on the columns,” ended up staying, Edwards says. “He’s kind of been the only carpenter on the job. He’s done work for Rhodes College, and you know how beautiful it is. He’s a finish carpenter, a cabinet maker by trade.”

Looking around the restaurant, Edwards says, “He built those walls. He built the vestibule. He did everything.”

All the restaurant’s mahogany veneer, which includes the columns, the bar front and back, and the surround on the exhibition kitchen in the dining room, came from the same tree. “We bought a tree,” Gooch says.

Graham Reese, the design architect, came up with the color scheme, which is “carmine” red, “caviar” black, and “black fox” — the brown on the walls. The brown on the front of the building is “urbane bronze.”

And, Edwards says, “We left the brick.” No painted brick at The Paramount.

Kathie Foy covered the large hanging light shades with fabric. The six lights, which are 30 inches across, hang from the ceiling, which is 20 feet from the floor.

Paintings by Sue Layman adorn the restaurant, which will also feature work by other artists. Layman’s art can be purchased, Edwards says.

A Sue Layman painting at The Paramount (Credit: Michael Donahue)

A look at the working menu shows a range of small plates, including crab beignets, pork belly cracklings, duck poutine, fried green tomatoes, smoked salmon dip, ricotta dumplings, poached shrimp, bronzed yellowfin tuna, purple hull pea mussels, wings, and sea scallops. You can even get fried bologna — with pickled peach mustard.

Soups are crawfish and crab soup and caramelized onion soup with smoked bacon and blue cheese.

Entrees include a pork porterhouse with apple riesling jus, a grilled skirt steak with chimichurri, cornbread and andouille stuffed quail, shrimp and grits with NOLA sauce, tasso ham, and smoked gouda cheese, and a lamb roast with rhubarb butter with a glaze of olive oil, white soy sauce, fish sauce, sorghum syrup, miso, and garlic.

And you can order the Paramount Cheeseburger on a brioche bun.

As I said in an earlier story, The Paramount was one of the offices of Paramount Pictures distributing company. My father, who was branch manager of the distributing company, worked in this office and at Paramount’s other downtown offices until he retired at 70.

They’re coming up with a drink named in his honor, Edwards says. I told him my dad liked bourbon highballs.

The Backlot Sandwich Shop, another part of The Paramount, already is open.

An old logo dating to when Paramount Pictures occupied the space is on the front of the building. In case you want to count the stars.