Casa Bonita responds to its employees in a memo.
Last week a group of employees called #WeAreTeamCasa sent a private list of demands to their employer that has since been made public as of Wednesday of last week—the list of demands centered around management offering health benefits and workplace transparency.
“We were hired for full-time, 40 hours a week, but what we’re getting is 20 hours or less each week on average — even some of us are making less than 15 hours. It’s ridiculous, and we want to be paid full-time,” Jo Lowry, who works in guest services at Casa Bonita, told Denver7 Thursday.
#WeAreTeamCasa requested that management respond to their letter at a specific time; since they hadn’t, they publicly released their letter and started a petition. Now, the administration has responded to staff via memo.
“We do not want to make promises to customers or staff that we cannot fulfill,” the memo reads, in part.
According to Denver7, “the restaurant has been “intentional about opening gradually in order to refine the many complex aspects of the Casa Bonita experience,” adding that while they understand the frustration that has accompanied the restaurant’s slow, soft opening, they have been transparent about “the intention and reasons behind the pacing.”
While Casa Bonita got rid of tipping and upped its minimum wage to $30 per hour, the money move caused a 40 to 50% pay cut, reports the outlet. As for Casa Bonita, they say the pay cut resulted from customers not tipping or “leaving tips lower thane expected.”
“With the unanticipated shortfalls in customer tipping during the soft openings, all staff were experiencing lower income than expected. That is why we moved to substantially enhanced hourly rates,” management wrote in Friday’s memo, adding they remained focused on providing their staff “with a fair compensation and benefits package.”
Casa Bonita only allows ticketed guests; more information can be found here.
