D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb is suing a celebrated upscale restaurant Swahili Village for rampant wage theft and egregious business practices.

The lawsuit, announced on Wednesday, accuses the restaurant company and its executive officers Kevin Onyona and Emad Shoeb of stealing wages and tips from staff since opening in 2020, as well as failing to keep records of how many hours each employee worked for compensation or paid sick leave purposes, leaving people deeply underpaid even as some worked over 60 hours a week. The Office of the Attorney General says Swahili Village owes “hundreds of thousands of dollars and hundreds of paid sick leave days” to employees, most of whom are people of color including African immigrants, for violating numerous local laws.

“These egregious and systemic violations, which persisted for years, reveal that wage theft and worker abuse were no accident at Swahili Village DC—they were part of the business plan,” the lawsuit reads.

Swahili Village did not respond to a request for comment via email. Nor was a manager reachable by phone.

Onyona opened the fine dining restaurant that serves Kenyan cuisine catered to African diplomats and expats who worked downtown, in March of 2020. Various media reported at the time Swahili Village would be one of D.C.’s few Black-owned fine dining restaurants. The prestigious Michelin recommended the restaurant in its guide. He was forced to close his second week in due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But because the restaurant had just opened, it did not qualify for a federal small business loan, according to the Washington Business Journal. Onyona also told WBJ he was “struggling”, having taken out $1.3 million worth of loans to build out his restaurant at 1990 M. St NW.

The OAG lawsuit complicates the restaurant’s story. “Unlike the vast majority of law-abiding restaurants and businesses in the District that sought to weather these challenges through lawful means, Swahili Village DC instead responded by foisting its costs onto already-struggling workers through stolen wages,” the lawsuit reads.

Swahili Village allegedly failed to pay its workers even before the pandemic hit and after the restaurant rebounded. In January 2020, Swahili Village began hiring employees, from servers to bussers, to prepare for the grand opening, according to the lawsuit. The restaurant operators allegedly paid multiple employees no more than $5 per hour, despite the hourly minimum wage being $14 at the time; some people were paid nothing.

The lawsuit says Swahili Village failed to pay some workers when the restaurant reopened for in-person dining in June 2020, meaning servers and bartenders relied on tips for their compensation. When tips failed to amount to the city’s minimum wage, the employer allegedly failed to pay their workers the difference, as required by law. Swahili Village also required some bartenders and servers to cede a portion of their tips so those dollars would be distributed amongst staff, per the lawsuit. However, workers never received the funds.

Swahili Village didn’t document the hours its employees worked, per the lawsuit, nor did the employer provide its workers with basic written records regarding their employment and pay. So they did not know their base pay rate or get a formal paystub. When the employer did pay employees, it was erratically and below what the minimum wage law required.

Additionally, the restaurant never provided workers with any paid sick leave as required by law, per the lawsuit, and were reprimanded for missing work days. When employees clocked more than 40 hours per week, and in some cases even more than 60, these employees allegedly never received overtime pay.

The staff were especially vulnerable, according to the lawsuit — in their early twenties, with some having never worked anywhere else before. “Defendants led these vulnerable employees to believe that their wages were not only legal but typical, and that being paid just a few dollars an hour was normal practice for the District’s restaurant industry.”

Meanwhile, the executive officers of Swahili Village, which also has locations in Maryland and New Jersey, positioned themselves as experts in the restaurant industry. Shoeb advertises his monthly hospitality lectures on his website.

The OAG is requesting back wages for workers, as well as statutory penalties to be determined in a trial by jury.  The office has pursued cases against multiple businesses for exploiting their workers, most recently reaching a settlement agreement for failing to pay out paid sick leave with Levy Premium Foodservice Limited Partnership, which provides food services at Nationals Park. The company agreed to pay all employees eight additional hours of sick leave, which amounted to over $164,000 in total.

Workers who believe their rights have been violated are encouraged to call the OAG at (202) 442-9828 or email workers@dc.gov.