A Buckhead brewery has been hit with a civil lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, accused of firing a Black chef after he reported widespread race and sex discrimination.
Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant on Peachtree Road violated the Civil Rights Act, according to a complaint lodged Monday in a Georgia federal court.
The EEOC claims Iron Hill fired a Black chef in July 2021 after he complained to management about the mistreatment of Black, Hispanic and female staff. The chef, who began working at the brewery in November 2020, was sent home after asking to be treated “like a human being,” according to the complaint. He was also called a racial slur by a senior chef, the EEOC alleged.
“The use of racial slurs was commonplace in (Iron Hill’s) kitchen and workplace,” the complaint states. “At least one non-African American bartender made racial remarks against African American employees and customers, to include that ‘there were too many Black servers’ and that he ‘wanted pretty white faces in the bar.’”
Iron Hill is a national chain with locations in Buckhead and Dunwoody. Outside Georgia, the franchise has locations in Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and South Carolina.
Both Iron Hill Brewery of Buckhead LLC and Iron Hill Brewery LLC are named as defendants in the EEOC’s lawsuit. They did not immediately respond Thursday to questions about the case.
The chef fired from the Buckhead brewery first reported workplace sex and race discrimination in early June of 2021, the EEOC claimed. It said the chef’s concerns included that Hispanic employees were improperly removed from the work schedule and that a server, a breastfeeding new mother, was forced to pump breast milk in a public restroom because managers refused to leave the restaurant’s private office.
The chef was told by the brewery’s acting general manager that he was due to be fired for speaking up, according to the lawsuit. The EEOC said the chef’s supervisor began to disrespect him immediately after he complained.
In early July 2021, the chef received a final written warning, though no prior warnings had been issued, the lawsuit states. The warning accused the chef of acting aggressively when asking to be treated like a human being, per the complaint.
When told by a senior employee on July 11, 2021 to “tone it down,” the chef responded in a text message “I’m not going to do anything fireable and I won’t be intimidated to quit.” The chef was fired the same day, the EEOC said.
The agency said the bartender whose racist remarks had prompted complaints was not fired.
The EEOC said it reached out to Iron Hill in September after finding reasonable cause to believe that the brewery had violated federal law. The agency said Iron Hill did not proffer an acceptable agreement for “informal methods of conciliation to endeavor to eliminate the unlawful employment practices and provide appropriate relief.”
Back pay, job reinstatement, and compensation for humiliation, among other things, is sought for the chef through the EEOC’s case.
Iron Hill’s Buckhead location opened in 2020 and the Dunwoody location the following year.
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