White Center Dairy Queen workers say shutdown shorted them 2 weeks’ pay
We’ve received several questions about what happened to the White Center Dairy Queen at 10256 16th SW, which has been shuttered since earlier this month, with only a note on the door alluding to “register failure.”
(Its page on the corporate website features a “temporarily closed” icon.) Now a letter from some of the employees has been published by Working Washington, saying they weren’t paid for the two weeks before the shutdown, and didn’t even know about the closure until they showed up for work and found the restaurant shuttered:
… The delay of the checks have affected a lot of the employees. One of the employee(s) is homeless with her one year old daughter and is struggling to find a job and is struggling to provide for her family, another employee is behind on their student loans for college, and another person is unable to pay for their car insurance.
The majority of the employees are unable to pay monthly bills such as phone bills, utility bills, water bill, and rent. …
We will be trying again after the holiday to reach DQ corporate, which is in Minneapolis. As its site points out, restaurants are owned by individual franchisees, but the workers’ letter alleges that the shutdown was ordered by the parent corporation. So far we haven’t found the franchisee in public databases (King County does not have a restaurant business-license database) but we’re still looking.
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May 29th, 2016 at 12:48 pm
A reason to support Seattle annexation: if this were in Seattle there would be much more legal recourse for the employees.
http://www.seattle.gov/laborstandards/wage-theft
May 31st, 2016 at 2:58 am
I feel so sorry for the employees. I hope they are successful in getting their back pay! However, I am not surprised at the closure. While I have always had satisfactory orders, the fact that thei air conditioning did NOT work was a ominous sign. It seems to me that no only did it not work this year but the past two summers. When you want to escape the summer heat in your home and get a cold DQ treat, do you want to consume it in a hot restaurant? I love the explanation for being closed, “register issues”! It is more management issues! While White Center now does truly have great eateries, ethnic and American! But since the DQ represents old White Center and is a icon, I hope it reopens under better management!
May 31st, 2016 at 10:55 am
Here’s a link to the owners:
http://bls.dor.wa.gov/LicenseSearch/lqsLicenseDetail.aspx?RefID=1918843
UBI is 601678720
Governing People:
SOON JO
TIMOTHY JO
TON JO
May 31st, 2016 at 10:58 am
Their business licenses expired 12/31/15 per the WA Secretary of State
http://www.sos.wa.gov/corps/search_detail.aspx?ubi=601678720
June 8th, 2016 at 9:09 pm
Good Riddance. The people that worked there were incompetent. I waited in the drive through for over 20 minutes with 2 cars in front of me. The burger tasted like crap and I threw it away. Not suprised!