50 of the 533,000

533,000 U.S. jobs were lost in November. This is the story of 50 of those jobs...

Employees Shocked to See Famous Dave's Closed November 23rd:

The local Famous Dave's Legendary Pit BBQ restaurant closed its doors Sunday, with management citing sluggish sales figures. The news came as a shock to restaurant employees when they arrived Sunday to begin their work shifts. None of the employees were notified of the impending close, including those working the late shift Saturday night. After the Saturday night shift ended, moving trailers arrived to remove the interior furnishings and equipment.

"I came into work as usual, but everything was getting packed up and moved onto trailers," said Dan B, a former server at the restaurant. "Nobody knew what was going on. They could have at least told us." Dan's fiancee, Ashlee, who waited tables at the restaurant, said she was devastated to see her job vanish overnight. "I would've appreciated any type of notice," she said, "in order to have time to find another job". Dan and Ashlee now face the grim reality of unemployment as they struggle to provide for their 3 children in the midst of a nationwide economic crisis.

Scott Morton, the area director for Famous Dave's franchise locations in Utah, said he was notified last Friday of the decision to close this location by the parent company, William Tell, Inc. He said the employees were not given prior notice in order to prevent them from skipping the last few days of work and/or from stealing valuable items during the final days.

Some employees, including Dan, were offered compensation for Sunday if they helped load the moving trucks. "Some work is better than no work," Dan said of his decision to spend the day hollowing out the contents of his former employer.

Famous Dave's is a franchise operation. While the local restaurant originally employed 100 people when it opened here in 2004, it had reduced employees down to 50 over the last year as revenue dropped due to poor sales. Famous Dave's has over 100 franchise locations in 40 states. The local Famous Dave's is part of the William Tell Inc regional group of franchises, which includes Applebee's Restaurants. The owner/president of William Tell Inc is John Prince who has, to date, expressed no regret over the way the employees were treated.

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DK's remarks: The people who live in my isolated smallish town are generally courteous and quite mannerly. Rudeness is not normal behavior. That's why I find this story particularly egregious. It was like an early bird combo Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas eff-yew to Famous Dave's local employees and their families! I can't help but wonder if the woman with the carload of kids who withdrew her last $2 from the bank just prior to Thanksgiving was one of their employees (see post below).

If the store manager or franchise management were so afraid of employee theft, why not just have laid them off Friday morning and given them 3-days pay (Fri-Sat-Sun) while they moved out? It's not like they were making any money by having them work those days. From what I understand, the local Famous Dave's was losing money every day it stayed open. I bet it would've cost them less to pay those employees for 3-days of hourly wages than it did to keep the doors open and attempt to sneak out in the middle of the night.

It is quite a personal slap in the face for employees to show up for their work shift and find that their job is no longer there. It's also a slap in the community's face to brazenly betray so many workers and leave them with nothing. They will now have to start from scratch in a tough job market. I understand the labor laws here did not require any notice to hourly workers, but what about the employer's personal code of conduct or sense of fair play?

Yes, the employees will be able to claim unemployment compensation, but that is cold comfort when what they really need are jobs. No doubt some of them will end up enlisting in the military as an employer of last resort. Ashlee and her 3 kids may reside in some ramshackle base housing unit while Dan goes abroad to explain democracy to Afghanistan or Pakistan!

I will no longer be eating at any Famous Dave's. I'm also boycotting Applebee's since they are part of the William Tell regional group of franchises that owns Famous Dave's. In fact, the other night we ate at a locally owned restaurant, Scaldoni's. The prices were higher than a franchise, but it was worth the splurge for our anniversary (33-yrs!). Besides, I was happy to realize that the money spent in a local business stays here, rather going to line the pockets of a slimeball like John Prince.

To paraphrase an old TV series, "There are 533,000 stories in The Naked City, and this has been 50 of them"!