The front of the Keene location of Tito’s Taqueria before it opened last October. (File photo by Trisha Nail)
A U.S. Department of Labor investigation found Tito’s Taqueria owed more than $62,000 in back wages and withheld tips to 126 employees across three locations in Keene, Brattleboro and Greenfield, Mass.
The counter service restaurant that sells burritos and tacos has paid $124,000 in an administrative settlement with labor department, which includes the money it owed its employees as well as an equal amount in liquidated damages, the department said in a news release Monday. Tito’s also paid the department $12,214 in civil money penalties to resolve its violations, the release says.
According to the investigation, Tito’s Taqueria illegally required employees to share a portion of their tips with managers and neglected to compensate workers for overtime.
“The violations by Tito’s Taqueria to shortchange workers by misusing their tips to pay managers is a problem we commonly find in the restaurant industry,” Wage and Hour Division District Director Steven McKinney said in the news release. “The Fair Labor Standards Act forbids employers from keeping employees’ tips for any purpose, whether directly from customers or through a tip pool.”
Restaurant owner Tito Garza told The Sentinel in a phone interview Monday that he did not know he was violating labor policies. He said he hired a human resources consultant to make sure he’s in compliance going forward.
Garza said he was unaware that managers could not share in tips.
“We have a big tip pool at each location,” said Garza, who said he never took any tips for himself. “Everyone shares in that pool based on the amount of hours they work, but I was wrong.”
Regarding the overtime findings, Garza said he had two managers he thought were salaried employees and were not required to receive overtime compensation. But he said it was determined that the managers did not oversee enough full-time employees to be exempt from overtime pay.
Garza began his business as a taco truck in Greenfield, Mass., in 2016. He opened his first physical restaurant in Greenfield in November 2019, followed by a second location in Brattleboro nearly two years later, The Sentinel previously reported. Last October he opened a third brick-and-mortar location in Keene.
“At the end of the day, my name is on the building,” Garza said. “I take personal responsibility. I should have known better and educated myself.”
This article is being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.
