Just-filed lawsuit offers details on a Wichita restaurant’s sudden closing last summer
When a new barbecue restaurant opened in the former Jezebel’s building at 4520 E. 47th St. South last summer then abruptly closed just a few weeks later, no one involved would say what happened.
Now, there’s a lawsuit that gives a glimpse behind the scenes of the short-lived restaurant, whose remodeled building is now listed for lease or sale.
A federal lawsuit was filed late last week in federal court by former managing partner Eric King, his wife, Nichole, and 12 former restaurant employees, including two of King’s minor children. The lawsuit says the Barbe-Q-Pit LLC and owners Ron Bowens and Patricia Hardrick, owe the employees wages for the work they did from June 19 until July 5, the day the suit says Bowens came to the restaurant and fired all the employees.
The employees were never paid for that work, a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Kansas Wage Payment Act, the suit says, and it asks that the employees be awarded damages including their unpaid wages plus 100 percent interest. The suit also requests a jury trial.
Ron Bowens did not return a call asking for comment, and there is no attorney for him or Hardrick listed in court records.
The lawsuit also says that the owners entered into a contract with King that promised him, as managing partner, $5,000 a month for five years. He wasn’t paid any of that, says the suit, which asks that King be paid monetary damages in excess of $75,000 for breach of contract.
The lawsuit says that the restaurant’s 28 employees were scheduled to receive their paychecks on July 3 of last year but that Bowens told King that the staff would be paid two days later, on July 5, instead.
But that day, Bowens “came to the restaurant and fired all the employees, including plaintiffs,” the suit says. None of them received pay for work they performed between June 19 and July 5, the suit says.
The suit also said that the agreement the owners made with King was to start on Dec. 17, 2018, and was to end on Dec. 16, 2023. The agreement said that King’s wages were to include a management fee of $5,000 a month, paid bi-weekly.
The suit also says that King was not paid the fee and that the contract was also breached because the owners terminated the agreement without providing 60 days written notice. To this date, the suit says, King still has not received written notice.
The restaurant, whose 6,250 square foot interior was completely remodeled last year, opened on June 17 and served a barbecue lunch buffet and a big menu in the evening, and King said at the time he was hoping to draw crowds from nearby McConnell Air Force Base. King is a veteran of the Wichita restaurant scene, who had worked for the Ryan’s Steakhouse and Longhorn Steakhouse chains and who helped open Delano’s Diner in 2017.
After the restaurant abruptly closed on July 5, King said he hoped the shutdown was temporary and that he was pursuing legal action to get it reopened.
This story was originally published February 28, 2020 at 11:45 AM.
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