SAN ANTONIO – Local restaurant Sushi Haya has been ordered to pay $81,308 to 33 workers after a federal investigation found that executives took a cut of tips and the company failed to pay overtime wages.
The all-you-can-eat restaurant is at 226 W. Bitters Road, near Embassy Row in the shopping center anchored by Hobby Lobby. It opened in 2022. It operates as Hongwei Sushi LLC, doing business as Sushi Haya.
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A Sushi Haya spokesperson provided the following statement: “Sushi Haya takes its responsibilities to its employees seriously. The Department of Labor matter concerned prior-period payroll practices. The restaurant cooperated with the process, corrected its practices, and completed the required payments before the recent coverage was published. We do not dispute the DOL’s stated findings, but we ask that coverage accurately reflect the DOL’s statement that the wages were recovered and that the published total covered more than one category of findings.”
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found that the company ran an illegal tip pool that shared tips with company executives. Federal law forbids employers or managers from keeping employees’ tips for any purpose.
Read more of this story at the San Antonio Business Journal website.
Editor’s note: This story was published through a partnership between KSAT and the San Antonio Business Journal.
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