- The "South Park" creators face a new dispute with staff at their restaurant in Colorado.
- Casa Bonita employees say they aren't working the 40 hours a week promised when they joined.
The creators of "South Park" are facing new unrest from workers at their Casa Bonita restaurant a month after they came under fire for abolishing tipping.
Staff at the restaurant in Lakewood, Colorado sent a letter to Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the owners, and managers on July 12 outlining a list of demands and gave them a week to respond.
The 50 employees said they were promised a 40-hour work week when they were hired by Casa Bonita. But because the restaurant is only opening from Thursday to Saturday, this had not happened.
They asked Parker and Stone to confirm a date for full opening hours, as well as outline a benefits package and reinstate a tip pool structure.
A bartender identified only as Gayle said in the letter: "Upon hire at Casa Bonita, they requested I leave a full-time job in order to devote full-time hours to Casa Bonita. That was in March. It is now July and we have yet to come close to full-time hours."
Parker and Stone bought Casa Bonita in September 2021 after its former owners filed for bankruptcy, per the Denver Post.
They spent $40 million on renovating the restaurant and hired acclaimed chef Dana Rodriguez to oversee its new era.
However, Parker and Stone were criticized by staff last month after they eliminated tipping at the restaurant and instead paid servers $30 an hour – more than double the salary that was initially advertised by the company.
Anonymous employees told Axios Denver that while it was likely to stabilize their incomes, it might result in lower overall pay when busier periods were taken into account.
The employees were given a day to accept the conditions of their new contract, per Axios.
In an internal memo responding to the latest demands and shared with Insider, management told employees they wanted Casa Bonita to open "well, not fast."
The company said it had been "intentional about opening gradually in order to refine the many complex aspects of the Casa Bonita experience."
"While we understand this may be frustrating for some fans and staff, we have been transparent about the intention and reasons behind the pacing. We do not want to make promises to customers or staff that we cannot fulfill," the memo read.
It also argued that during a soft opening period, they found guests' tips were much lower than expected, inspiring them to fix a higher wage and remove tipping.