I dont have a dog in this fight...but if Shaya knew about the sexual harassment and never said anything about it until he got canned makes me very skeptical to believe anything he says

and yes....there are plenty of people takling about the sexual harassment that went on in Shaya's restaurants.

quote:
Current and former staff of Shaya's BRG restaurants say his restaurants were not the safe havens from sexual harassment that he described.

"While working as a line cook at Shaya, I heard daily 'jokes' about rape, including one joke about pedophilia," a former line cook wrote in a resignation email sent in January. Male colleagues, she wrote, "would call grapeseed oil 'rapeseed' and use that as an opportunity to joke about rape. They also would say in a weird accent, 'She run, but I always catch her.' A (male colleague) one time said a food item was 'dryer than an 8-year-old.'"

The former line cook, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of hurting future job prospects, said work conditions didn't improve even after she complained. Elizabeth Campbell, a former Shaya line cook, said she witnessed the abuse directed at the former line cook and it "made me feel very uncomfortable." Campbell said she now regrets not having complained herself.

"I saw this subtle violence that was in front of me," Campbell said. "I just accepted it because I thought it was okay. I thought the goal was to put out really delicious food."

Campbell said she was fired from her job at Shaya in June after 13 months, for crying during work.

Campbell said Alon Shaya told her when he dismissed her, "'It's really a shame, because you're talented, but you have to not cry at work. You really have to be stronger and don't let your environment get to you.'" She added: "It bothered me, because it was an environment that he created."

Alon Shaya, in his most recent interview, recalled both incidents. He said the employee responsible for the jokes referenced in the former line cook's email was disciplined. Both he and BRG provided documentation that the discipline occurred. Alon Shaya said he regretted that the disciplinary action did not change work conditions enough to keep the female line cook from quitting. He also said he did not intend to "make excuses" for the offending employee's behavior in his conversation with her.

"I'm not trying to minimize anybody's complaints or concerns," Shaya said.

As for Campbell, Shaya said "we worked to help her with her situation" but that her crying was "disrupting the customer experience in the restaurant."

quote:
Another employee, a former Domenica waitress who asked to remain anonymous, said she complained multiple times over two years about a male colleague who made sexual comments and showed her inappropriate photos.

quote:
In October, a 23-year-old recently hired busser at Shaya restaurant said she started to become uncomfortable with a male superior.

"In a restaurant, it's a tight space," she said. "People put their hand on your back to get by. But he'd put his hand on my waist, or my butt."

quote:

One of those employees, a 21-year-old Tulane undergrad who asked her name not be used, said the same man repeatedly hit on her during work and over text messages. During one shift, the woman said, "I was bussing a table and he came up to me out of the blue and said, 'I bet you wear nightgowns to sleep, don't you?'"

The woman said the company had not offered her any guidance on how to handle sexual harassment or file a complaint. "I Googled it a couple of days ago," she said in an August interview, "and I couldn't find a form or anything."

In October, another female Shaya employee contacted NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune to report being harassed by the same manager. "I remember one time when he came up to me and said, 'Am I on your top three list of guys at Shaya? Because you're on mine,'" she said. "How do you respond to that when you're at work?"

Campbell, the former Shaya sous chef, said she had her own run-in with the man last Mardi Gras season. She said she had received a king cake from the restaurant but not yet paid for it. On the way out of work, Campbell said she told him, "I'll pay for it tomorrow." She said he replied, "Don't worry about it, as long as it involves the back of your throat.'"