Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb today announced a lawsuit against Talea Ristorante and its owner, Hamza Hadani, for systematically stealing employees’ wages and violating other laws that protect District workers. An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) found that Talea and Hadani pay their employees less than half of the tipped minimum wage, fail to ensure tipped workers’ take-home pay meets the regular minimum wage, and deny workers paid sick leave and overtime pay, even as some of them work 70-hour weeks. The investigation also found that Hadani prohibits workers from discussing their pay with one another and then retaliates against those who protest their mistreatment by threatening and firing them.

“Hamza Hadani exploits his employees while basking in the attention he receives as a well-known restauranteur,” said Attorney General Schwalb. “Servers, hosts, food runners, bussers, and bartenders are underpaid, lied to, denied sick leave, refused overtime—and then, if they speak out about such illegal conduct, are intimidated, harassed and fired. As the District’s independent Attorney General, I will continue to fight to protect the workers who are the lifeblood of our city’s vibrant restaurant culture and work tirelessly to ensure a level playing field for restaurants that play by the rules.”

Talea is an Italian restaurant that opened in the summer of 2024 in Ward 3’s Cathedral Heights neighborhood. Its owner, Hamza Hadani, is an experienced restauranteur who owns several other restaurants in the District. OAG’s complaint alleges that despite Hadani’s years of experience in the restaurant industry, he and Talea are violating multiple District wage-and-hour laws, including the Minimum Wage Revision Act (MWRA), Sick and Safe Leave Act (SSLA), Wage Transparency Act (WTA), and the Wage Payment and Collection Law (WPCL).

Specifically, OAG alleges that Talea and Hadani have violated the law by:

• Failing to pay workers minimum wage: Hadani’s wage theft began before Talea even opened, when he held a purported “training” period during which some employees worked as many as 70 hours per week while being paid sub-minimum wages. When Talea opened its doors on June 22, 2024, the tipped minimum wage was $8 per hour, and it rose to $10 per hour on July 1, 2024. Yet Hadani and Talea pay many of their tipped workers less than half that, some making a tipped wage as low as $3.99 per hour. They also fail to ensure that tipped workers’ hourly pay at least meets the regular minimum wage ($17.50 as of July 1, 2024), as required by law. As a result, many employees have earned sub-minimum wages even with tips.
   
• Failing to pay employees for overtime and for all hours worked: Hadani and Talea fail to pay most employees the required overtime rate—one and a half times their regular rate—when they work more than 40 hours in a week. Additionally, some workers were directed by Hadani to underreport hours worked by not clocking in until they began table service—instead of when they arrived for their shifts—resulting in loss of pay of up to two hours per shift.
   
• Failing to provide sick leave: When Talea employees get sick, they are forced to go unpaid and find other workers to cover their shifts. Hadani and Talea do not track absences or leave for which employees should be eligible. Further, Hadani illegally demands that all employees produce a doctor’s note for any medical absence, firing those who miss work and are unable to provide notes, including one employee who could not afford to go to the doctor because Talea underpaid them.
   
• Failing to maintain required employment records: Hadani and Talea fail to maintain adequate payroll records as required by DC law. In many instances, Hadani and Talea have paid workers with handwritten checks that do not include itemized statements separately showing wages and tips, deductions from or additions to wages, or amounts earned for each hour worked during the pay period. As a result, employees do not know the number of hours for which they are being paid, the hourly rate at which they are being paid, how much has been deducted from their paycheck, or how much they can expect to take home in a given week. This has facilitated Hadani and Talea’s wage theft, since keeping their employees in the dark has made it easier to conceal underpayments.
   
• Retaliating against workers who have spoken out or reported violations: Hadani often meets workers’ questions about their pay with threats, including profanity-laced diatribes. Hadani repeatedly has warned employees against communicating among themselves about their pay and threatened them with baseless defamation suits for notifying their colleagues about the wage-and-hour violations at Talea. When Hadani suspected that some workers were cooperating with OAG’s investigation, he fired all of them. Then, using his extensive contacts in the restaurant industry, he also contacted fired workers’ new employers at other restaurants and sought to get them fired again.

OAG’s lawsuit seeks to end Talea and Hadani’s illegal conduct and bring them into compliance with the District’s employment laws. It also seeks back wages and additional restitution for Talea workers who have been denied the minimum wage, overtime, and paid sick leave, as well civil penalties.

A copy of the complaint is available here. 

This matter is being handled by Assistant Attorneys General Morgan Sperry and Jude Nwaokobia; Investigator Shelby Miller; Dennis Corkery, Assistant Chief of the Workers’ Rights and Antifraud Section; and Graham Lake, Section Chief of the Workers’ Rights and Antifraud Section.

OAG’s Efforts to Protect Workers    
OAG’s Workers’ Rights and Antifraud Section is dedicated to fighting wage theft, protecting District workers and ensuring that businesses in the District compete on a level playing field. Since January 2023, OAG has secured more than $10 million for workers and the District. In total, since gaining wage theft enforcement authority, OAG has secured over $25 million by investigating and bringing enforcement actions against employers who violate District law. OAG’s wage theft enforcement efforts have focused on industries with high populations of vulnerable workers, such as construction, restaurants and hospitality, healthcare, and the gig economy.

How to Report Wage and Hour Violations 
Workers who believe that their rights have been violated, or that they have experienced wage theft or other wage and hour violations, can contact OAG by calling (202) 724-7730 or emailing workers@dc.gov or trabajadores@dc.gov.