Bar Vegan, celebrity restaurateur Pinky Cole and two of her businesses have failed to pay a settlement agreed to months ago to end a lawsuit over unpaid wages, plaintiffs in the case told a federal judge Wednesday.
But Cole told the judge that even though she was named as a defendant because she was the CEO of Slutty Vegan at the time, she did not own an interest in Bar Vegan and wasn’t running the glitzy Ponce City Market restaurant.
Just weeks ago, Cole announced she had briefly lost and then reacquired her Slutty Vegan dining empire after a corporate restructuring earlier this year.
Bar Vegan LLC was owned by Slutty Vegan Inc., but that corporate entity is now under the control of an administrator, according to a statement from Cole’s representative to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Cole has moved “to purchase the company back under a new entity, acquiring key assets and relaunching the brand as Slutty Vegan 2.0. She is no longer affiliated with Slutty Vegan Inc.,” the representative said.
Cole’s team did not respond when asked by the AJC if Cole had reacquired Bar Vegan as part of taking back control of Slutty Vegan.
Credit: Jamie Spaar
Credit: Jamie Spaar
The Bar Vegan settlement stems from a 2022 lawsuit brought by former employee Morgan Georgia against the restaurant, Cole and two of her Bar Vegan business partners, Aaron Mattison and Jason Crain. Georgia alleged they withheld tips and overtime, and failed to meet federal minimum wage requirements at the restaurant’s Ponce City Market location.
Cole and her codefendants denied those claims. The suit turned into a class action, with multiple Bar Vegan servers and bartenders taking part.
The two sides eventually came to an agreement to settle the case, which was approved by federal District Court Judge J.P. Boulee last December. Cole and the other defendants agreed to pay $62,172 to the plaintiffs for alleged damages and $32,828 for attorney’s fees, according to the settlement filed with the court.
“While Pinky Cole was personally named in the lawsuit, she has no personal ownership or financial interest in Bar Vegan LLC. The entity is owned by Slutty Vegan Inc., and any liabilities associated with Bar Vegan fall under that corporate structure,” Cole’s representative said.
Credit: AJC
Credit: AJC
The lawyer representing the Bar Vegan employees, Travis Foust, now says that they’ve struggled to get any of the payment.
“I’m concerned about the ability to collect upon the settlement,” Foust told the judge during a Wednesday status hearing.
Foust said that at some point after the settlement was signed and the former employees submitted paperwork to get their portion of the funds, Bar Vegan’s lawyers told him the settlement would have to be financed, but would be paid once the financing went through.
“Since being informed of that, I’ve reached out, have asked for updates, and I just don’t think my opposing counsel are able to provide that from their client right now,” Foust said.
He plans to file a motion for the judge to enforce the settlement and for the defendants to pay the plaintiffs’ additional legal fees.
Foust also said Bar Vegan’s lawyers told him they were trying to withdraw from the case. Foust suggested lawyers for the defendants haven’t been paid. He told the court he was sympathetic to lawyers not being paid by a client, but he would oppose their motion to stop representing Cole and the other defendants.
One of the defendants’ lawyers, John Litchfield, did not dispute Foust’s characterization of the process, saying what Foust had outlined was “largely accurate.”
Litchfield explained to the judge that when the settlement was signed, Cole and the other defendants were seeking funding to pay for it, but at some point, he learned there was no funding available.
He then learned Slutty Vegan had fairly recently gone into insolvency proceedings.
“At this point, we don’t have a clear understanding of exactly what the process will be for funding the settlement,” Litchfield told the judge. He also said he plans to file a motion to withdraw as counsel for the defendants.
Judge Boulee noted that he was “loath” to let counsel for corporate defendants out of a case unless there was substitute counsel already named.
Litchfield declined the AJC’s request for comment on why he and his partners apparently want to withdraw.
Credit: Jamie Spaar
Credit: Jamie Spaar
It was the former board of Slutty Vegan Inc. that previously agreed to fund the proposed settlement amount, a representative for Cole said to the AJC. Cole was CEO of the company and sat on the board. But in February, the company went through a process used as an alternative to bankruptcy — before the settlement was paid.
Slutty Vegan’s board was formally dissolved and control of the company and its assets went to an estate administrator, the representative said.
“At that time, as a result of that resolution, everybody on the board resigned,” Cole told the judge. “I was no longer the CEO and no longer on the board, the estate handled all correspondence moving forward. So I did not know that I was required to communicate on behalf of the company, because I was released from all of my responsibilities as CEO and owner of Slutty Vegan, Inc.”
It’s unclear now if or when the settlement will be paid. Judge Boulee told his law clerk to give this case “high priority” once the motions and replies are filed “so we can keep this case moving through; it looks like it’s lagged a little bit already.”
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