There isn't much that Fat City can add to all the media drama stirred up after Beena Rajah, the owner of Jardine's restaurant and jazz club, impulsively fired every member of her venue's staff last week. All kinds of accusations are flying about Ms. Raja's management style every witch, I mean which, way. And the comments about the vivacious Ms. R on many of the local blogs are scathing.
I would hate to see Jardine's close — this city has far too few jazz and blues clubs as it is. And the food and service were good. But was it really such a terrible place to work?
By some accounts, yes. One former server, Stevie Collins, took his story to KSHB Channel 41. And local waiter and restaurant blogger David Hayden interviewed several former Jardine's employees for a troubling post about the club for his tipsfortips blog.
According to former Jardine's chef-manager Jim Dennis (who had been advised by his attorney not to say too much about his own experiences at the venue), Hayden's blog was pretty accurate.
"I was impressed by how he really captured the things that were going on there," says Dennis, who had given his notice to Jardine's the week before the mass firing.
Hayden tells Fat City that a benefit for the fired Jardine's employees is in the works: "What kind of business fires a loyal staff right before Christmas?" Hayden asks. When the fund-raiser is announced, we'll report it in Fat City.
In the meantime, Beena Rajah is apparently hiring a new staff to work for several December performances — including Julia Othmer and Ida McBeth dates — that had been previously announced.
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Chilehead: That is how it works when your cash sales exceed your credit card tips. When your credit card tips exceed your cash sales, the restaurant owes you money. This is more common now since more people use credit cards almost exclusively. This is dealt with in most restaurants by the managers handing the servers cash to make up the difference. In this case, the owner was choosing to hold the credit card tips and pay out the servers on their paycheck. This is legal as long as the tips appear promptly on weekly paychecks. The exception being that all monies owed them are due upon termination as is the case here.
support #thejardine15. These people are my family and the accusations leveled against them are completely baseless. They are amazing, upstanding people who i would trust with my life and ANY of my monetary possessions. I initially was interested in seeking employment there myself but one of my server friends strongly recommended against it. I am certainly glad I was given this warning. Please support #theJardine15 and all artists this woman has stolen from by attending their benefit. info: https://www.facebook.com/groups/3355546431…
Granted it's been many years since I waited tables but back then we kept our own bank. Meaning that we collected cash/credit card receipts from the customers. Then at the end of the day you rang out and paid the house for the food/booze that was sold. The credit card receipts were counted as cash toward what you owed at the end of the night. The tips were included in the total. What was left over was your tips. Then you tipped out the bar and the bussers.
Z- When those two are doing your damage control there might be a problem and coincidental coordinating for that date has been strongly considered. It is still contingent on scheduling with the venue/acts.
Putting the tips on a paycheck has been happening at a handful of places for years. Mostly country clubs and higher end restaurants. Situations like this are exactly why I have avoided any restaurant that feels it appropriate to keep my tips. It is also becoming more common (and is fully legal) for owners to take credit card processing fees out of servers tips. People have told me for years that they tips in cash to help the server. I have always told them it wasn't necessary. Situations like this are why I no longer say that.
As a good friend and roommate to quite a few of these Jardine's employees, I've personally heard some pretty terrifying stories about this lady over the last year or two, most of which were accurately summed up in the tipsfortips article. The staff there was extremely loyal, and made the place what it was, and I'm sad to see it end this way.
Well, according to Beena via Craig Glazer, she fired everyone because she found out they were stealing. And I'm SURE it's safe to trust their word vs. the multitude of people independently reporting exactly the same type of criminal behavior she has been exhibiting for quite a while.
For the knee-jerk crowd, that was sarcasm.
I feel for everyone who is out of a job due to what sounds like a long history of chaotic behavior. The big "how did I not know that" piece of information I've gotten out of all of this has to do with the dispensation of tips. I never put it together in my mind that tips are generally distributed via a server's paycheck vs. taking home cash every night like I did bartending in the dark ages. So if Beena is weeks behind paying out tips, that means people are stuck living on just north of three bucks per hour....and if NO checks are being cut then that means no money because there is no outlay of cash after each shift.
Sorry if I am literally the last person on earth not to know that, I'm actually embarassed to admit it, but wanted to underscore the point that YES, let us know the date/time/info on any and all benefits to help these folks out. If one happens to fall on the same night as Hearne Christopher Jr.'s big holiday party that he and the two-ish other people in KC who stand behind Beena are still having at Jardine's....then I would absolutely count that as this year's Festivus Miracle. I feel bad for anyone who needs a job badly enough to go and work there after such a hideous debacle.
If she can't afford to pay the fired servers what they are owed, how is she planning on paying all these new people she wants to hire? I wouldn't get within a mile of this place.
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