Employees at three Austin restaurants are claiming they were not paid ahead of the holiday season. The workers are employed by the Flavor Hospitality Group, which operates Gusto Italian Kitchen, Gina’s on Congress, and Gracia Mediterranean. Employees say they haven’t heard from the company’s owner in more than a week. Now they’re worried they could miss another paycheck.

Christian De La Fuente, the beverage and operations manager for Flavor Hospitality Group, said working through the holidays has often felt like being with family at the company.

“Everybody is like a family everywhere. We'd all go visit each other's restaurants and talk and learn and hang out after work," she said.

De La Fuente has been with the company for more than two and a half years and works across its three restaurants. Over the years, she said they’ve built strong relationships with their community.

“This is where they come, you know, with their families, and we've gotten so involved with all of them, and it's just gone,” she said.

De La Fuente said employees stopped hearing from the company’s owner on payday last week. She and another manager contacted payroll themselves to ensure workers received their checks before Christmas.

“And then I started getting texts on Christmas Eve night. ‘Hey, my check bounced,' ‘hey, my check bounced.' ‘Hey, what's going on? My check bounced.’ And it made me really angry," she said.

According to De La Fuente, 20 to 25 employees were collectively out about $25,000 right before the holiday season. Multiple attempts to reach the owner have gone unanswered.

“Yeah, it's awful. It's truly disgusting and it's unfair, and these people are owed their money that they worked so hard for," she said.

KVUE reached out to the owner, Cameron Lockley, for comment. A spokesperson with Motley Crew Media said in an emailed statement:

“Currently conversations are being held to assess the status of the business and with full transparency – at this time it is unclear what the path forward is. We currently are working with professionals to help gauge what the best next step is to honor our staff and community. We are committed to working towards a resolution to all issues at hand and to doing what is right. The goal is to have more information in the upcoming days.”

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