Damon's Grill and Sports Bar shuts down four Ohio locations; stiffs workers on final paychecks

[OhioChick]

Saturday, October 22, 2011, 12:45 AM

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- As many as 150 employees at four former Damon's Grill and Sports Bar locations in Northern Ohio are out of work and didn't receive their final paychecks following the quick closures of stores late last month.

Locations in Middleburg Heights, Mentor, Canton and Sandusky all closed after a Pittsburgh Bankruptcy Court approved plans for emergency shutdowns. The company didn't have the money to keep the lights on or pay its workers. In court filings, the state of Ohio said the stores had not even been sending in sales taxes collected on food sold. Though Damon's is based in Columbus, the holding company that owns it is in Pennsylvania.

In a July court filing, the company said the four stores had between 120 and 150 employees between them.

Michael Kaminksi, a Pittsburgh attorney representing the restaurant, said Damon's doesn't have any money to pay back wages, but it is working to get those funds.

More: http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2011/10/damons_grill_and_sports_bar_sh.html#incart_hbx

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[sunwyn]

2. They did the same thing here in Middletown Ohio a few years ago.

[femrap]

3. Thanks for posting...

so sad to see so many businesses go bankrupt. Yet McDonald's revenues go up and up and up.

I never eat there. I wish people would wake up and stop feeding the machine.

[Efilroft Sul]

4. Allow me to add some background to this story.

I believe the holding company referred to up above is Culinary Concepts, run by roofer magnate (yes, a construction exec, not a foodie) Ed Dunlap. Under Dunlap's direction, Culinary Concepts has run several of Pittsburgh's most legendary restaurants into the ground. He and his organization are either incompetent at best or heartless and cruel at worst. The truth, I suspect, lies somewhere in the middle. Here is the list of restaurants (excluding the northern Ohio Damon's) ruined by Dunlap's reverse Midas Touch:

• The Colony (home of the famous Colony sauce)
• Tambellini's (a cash cow that operated for several decades, just south of Pittsburgh's Liberty Tunnels)
• Palate Bistro (a French fusion restaurant in the heart of Pittsburgh's Cultural District — how can you lose money at a restaurant here?!)
• Amigos (pseudo Mexican restaurants; the one in Peters Township south of Pittsburgh was converted to a Damon's; I think the second location at the Galleria in Mt. Lebanon, also south of Pittsburgh, still sits empty)
• And the biggest tragedy, Le Pommier — one of the finest French restaurants ever — burned and was never reopened after a fire last winter

Please note that after Le Pommier burned, the Amigos in Peters Township was converted to a Damon's and another Damon's opened in Pleasant Hills, another suburb just south of Pittsburgh.

If I were an employee at any other Damon's locations or at LeMont, which operates on Pittsburgh's Mount Washington, I'd be prepared for either a sudden closure or perhaps a kitchen fire that happens hours after the restaurant closes.

Sources:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09208/986640-53.stm
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11024/1120363-100.stm

Edited for spelling error

[RZM]

5. It's a shame they aren't treating the employees right

But I ate at Damon's once and found their ribs to be awful. They were really, really bad. Maybe just a bad batch, but I don't know. Plenty of other people have had the same experience.