The Duplex, a popular restaurant in Logan Square, is being sued by former employees who allege various workplace violations, including failure to pay out tips, failure to pay minimum wage or overtime pay and neglecting to provide and retain records of time worked. Those employees are also seeking class action status against the restaurant group.
The lawsuit was filed July 1 in the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division as a collective action against For the People Hospitality Group LLC, the minority-owned parent company behind both The Duplex and Wicker Park’s The Revolver. LeQoinne Rice, who is the co-owner of For the People Hospitality, was named in the court filing along with his hospitality group manager, Christopher Scardina.
The suit comes after the employees worked with the restaurant ownership to resolve their issues with payment amid claims that their employer withheld tips.
“Before we filed [the lawsuit], we made a request for personnel files and for people’s paycheck stubs, and they were not able to produce a full set of paycheck stubs,” said Chris Williams, an attorney with Grassroots Legal Organizers for Workers (GLOW), who is representing the group. “We have gotten spotty production, so a lot of that is missing. And the law is very clear, the employer has the obligation to retain records and the burden to prove that people were paid properly.”
For the People Hospitality Group did not respond to a request for comment.
Amelia* is one of three former workers named in the lawsuit. She was a server.
“It was a very safe space in the Black community, and there’s not many spaces that we can all just be, so I was really excited,” Amelia said of her initial desire to work at The Duplex. “I had interviews with a great management team, and it just felt like a very good setup.”
After she was hired in June of last year, Amelia said things quickly took a negative turn. Amelia said she noticed an inconsistency in her pay. She only worked there for a month before being fired.
“There was a lot of conversations [with ownership] when it came to the discrepancies with the wage theft and the discrepancies within our pay,” Amelia told The TRiiBE.
Amelia is also listed in the lawsuit as having worked off the clock, resulting in work weeks that were longer than 40 hours. She claims she was not paid for the additional hours worked.
Lucia Garcia, who is also named in the suit, was employed as a server with The Duplex and The Revolver from February 2024 until August 2024. She started to question her compensation when she learned of inconsistent access to an online portal used to view pay stubs.
“When I first started, maybe for like, a couple of weeks, [the portal] was there. And so that’s kind of what led me to feel a bit more comfortable, because I was like, ‘Ok, it’s there. I don’t have to worry about it,'” Garcia said. “But then [the portal] was changed a couple more times as I was there, and it was not as easily accessible as I thought it was. It was at one point for a very small amount of time, and then it was [no portal] at all.”
According to GLOW, a national organization that provides legal support for employees seeking legal help with exploitative business owners, Amelia and Garcia were not alone. The organization filed the lawsuit on behalf of the three former employees, plus other “similarly situated employees.” The workers are also meeting with the Chicago Hospitality Accountability and Advocacy Database (CHAAD), a local advocacy group, to seek accountability for the alleged actions of their former employer.
“We found – we believe – violations of federal, state, [and] city law [involving] The Duplex and The Revolver in the city of Chicago, with regard to withholding of tips and management taking tips and misleading customers as to how gratuities were being used and spent and as well as requiring people to work off the clock in violation of federal state city law,” added Williams, the GLOW attorney, in an interview with The TRiiBE.
According to the filing, the restaurant owners implemented an automatic gratuity charge of 20% on all bills and did not inform employees “in writing or otherwise how they would be compensated, including how gratuities would be distributed, at the beginning of their employment.” The Fair Labor Standards Act, as well as Illinois law, prohibits employers from keeping employees’ tips.
The former employees are seeking five times the amount they claim was stolen from them in unpaid tips, overtime and time worked off the clock.
Sexual harassment charges were filed by GLOW against The Duplex back in March of this year with the Illinois Department of Human Rights, according to a press release from CHAAD about the filing against the restaurant group.
According to CHAAD, these accusations of wage theft in the hospitality industry are not isolated. Reports show that the restaurant industry is riddled with fraud.
*This article has been updated to redact the full name of a former employee for reasons related to privacy and impact on future employment opportunities.
