Brookhaven Eatery Ordered to Pay $110K in Back Wages

El Potro Mexican Restaurant on Buford Highway has been ordered to pay 10 employees more than $110,000 in back wages after a U.S. Labor Department investigation.

Investigators found the restaurant violated the minimum wage and overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

According to a release from the department, the restaurant paid its servers, bussers and kitchen staff a flat bi-weekly salary without regard to the number of hours worked.

For bussers and servers, this minimal salary was not sufficient to meet the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour or even the minimum cash wage for tipped employees of $2.13 per hour when divided by the number of hours they worked. The employer also failed to pay overtime pay for hours worked beyond 40 in a work week.

“Restaurant workers are typically among the most at-risk that we see,” said Frank McGriggs of the department’s Atlanta office. ”Failure to pay these workers their hard-earned minimum wage and overtime poses a serious problem to those who, in many cases, are already struggling to get by. It also undercuts those employers who obey the law and pay their workers properly.”