{"id":33824,"date":"2023-07-18T21:42:23","date_gmt":"2023-07-19T01:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=33824"},"modified":"2023-07-18T21:44:05","modified_gmt":"2023-07-19T01:44:05","slug":"moes-employees-say-they-havent-been-paid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/07\/18\/moes-employees-say-they-havent-been-paid\/","title":{"rendered":"Moe\u2019s employees say they haven\u2019t been paid"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In pushing for answers on behalf of dozens of Moe\u2019s Southwest Grill employees across Central Florida, after they say they went unpaid last week and were still being asked to come into work.<\/p>\n\n\n

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We found out the owner of that Moe\u2019s runs several restaurants from Tampa to Orlando.  We tried to speak with him to ask when employees will be paid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During what would have been the lunch rush at the Moe\u2019s along 17\/92 in Winter Park, we saw employees turning customers away, and packing up food.  They were closing, because workers say they haven\u2019t been paid in over two weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been letting people know that we\u2019re not open, and this is why,\u201d Manager Tiffany McKenna said.  \u201cI don\u2019t understand how a franchise is in such dire straits that they can\u2019t make payroll. Payroll should be the first thing you pay. It\u2019s the people that are running your front line. So I just don\u2019t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McKenna showed us an email she says was sent last week by the franchise owner, who we confirmed is Tony Friel.  Friel has more than 30 inactive LLCs related to restaurants across Central Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friel owns both Lakeland locations. Not sure when he acquired them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The email says, in part, \u2018We have been fighting to keep up with all other bills.\u00a0 But unfortunately, we cannot make payroll,\u2019 blaming an issue with deposits at the bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey are living paycheck to paycheck, and they need to eat, they need to keep their cars, they need to pay their rent,\u201d McKenna said.  \u201cThis isn\u2019t right.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In pushing for answers on behalf of dozens of Moe\u2019s Southwest Grill employees across Central Florida, after they say they went unpaid last week and were still being asked to… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[5479],"class_list":["post-33824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-moes-employees-say-they-havent-been-paid"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}