In March 2010, we posted a snippet about John Campbell’s Irish Bakery (5625 Geary) opening a second location on Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights. Not long after, they opened a third location on De Haro Street in Portrero.
Times appeared to be good for selling their renowned scones and Belfast Bap sandwiches!
But as it turns out, making enough dough to pay the rent proved to be challenging for the upstart bakery. So much so that owner John Campbell stopped paying his employees.
That didn’t sit well with the Labor Commission who recently ordered Campbell to pay $56,777 in unpaid wages, penalties and interest to a dozen former bakery employees who filed suit against him last spring.
Campbell initially stopped paying the employees back in January 2011. As the months rolled on, Campbell promised them they would eventually be paid. Memorial Day weekend rolled around, and Campbell closed the Pac Heights and Potrero locations for the holiday weekend, telling employees they would re-open up the following Tuesday. But they never did, and employees eventually learned that Campbell had filed for bankruptcy.
According to The Examiner, one of Campbell’s former managers, Sara Johnson, is owed $11,219 for 324 hours of unpaid work, interest and penalties. Another employee is owed $1,500, another – Kelsey Heckenkamp- is waiting on $10,210 in back pay.
And it’s not the first time Campbell has had financial problems with his business, The Examiner reports:
The June complaints are not the only problems on record. In 2009, Campbell was cited for not having enough workers’ compensation, according to records from the California Department of Industrial Relations. And another complaint, in 2008, found the bakery owed one employee $42,500 for back wages, overtime and mealtime. That claim was settled in 2009 for an undisclosed amount.
So what propels an employee to stay on for months even if they are not getting paid? That part is unclear but a struggling economy where jobs are scarce probably made it tough. Heckenkamp said that not getting paid for months a time “became very stressful”. We hope that employees at least went home each night with armfuls of bread from the shop!
The Geary Boulevard location for John Campbell’s Irish Bakery remains open and we have yet to hear any reports of it planning to close. But if you see a “Help Wanted” sign in the window, you just might want to think twice about applying for the job.
Sarah B.
Wow, this is too bad, since it is such a good bakery. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon in the food industry in which payment to employees is an issue. I know of certain restaurants, in which the executive chefs do not even know if their paychecks are good and have had them bounce on a regular basis.
Oh no! I REALLY hope that Geary location stays over. That and First Cake are my go-to quick breakfast stops. Their scones are still some of the best around. 🙁
That said, I also really hope all those employees get their earnings and it doesn’t happen again.
anybody who thinks this is unusual here in the new great depression should take this as a wake up call. there is almost no enforcement of labor laws whatsoever in this town. I only hope that this sends a message to the many, many other crooked employers taking advantage of desperate employees in san francisco
personally, I hope they shut this guy down for good, to send a message. as far as I’m concerned he should be in prison
This is why we have labor laws…and why they need to be enforced.
Oh man. I love this bakery but I hate when companies cheat their employees. I hope the employees/former employees get what they are due.
Their baking isn’t that good… Often over-baked and dried out scones IMO. Pasties were good. Baps dreadful. Staff, though, were always friendly.
lovely now where will i get yummy shortbread cookies
what a bastard!
Some good breads and pastries in that place. They nailed the guy – good! I will continue to shop there because I want to keep the employees in a job. I think he learned his lesson.
You could easily tell there was something fishy going on. The employees seemed frustrated, to say the least. They tried to put on a good show, but the employees weren’t as excited about their work as they once were. When employees stop trying to sell and do their jobs, and instead are there physically only, it’s only a matter of time.
I loved their store on Geary but there were too many times I saw a “be right back” sign on their door in the middle of the day. So I didn’t go back. Successful businesses pay their employees well and those employees, in return, make the business successful. That may not be the only key to success, but it’s the most important one in a retail business.
I once worked for an entity that was on shaky financial grounds. I knew the owner was having money issues, but even so, I did get paid as I expected in all the time I worked at this company. But as soon as I was told by the owner that he couldn’t guarantee my future wages (while fully expecting 40+ hour weeks from me), I was out the door. It seems to me that the longer one allows themselves to be involved in a no-win situation like this, the harder it is to extract one’s self from it. One week of no pay rapidly turns into two weeks of no pay, which then in turn mushrooms into four weeks of no pay, and exponentially on and on. And more often than not in these kinds of financial morasses, the time invested in hopes of receiving one’s earned wages goes unpaid. It’s kind of like trying to play yourself back to even after having lost $100 to a three-card Monte shill. It ain’t gonna happen and you ultimately lose even more. Despite the tough economy, I’ll quit at the first non-payment of wages with any job I hold. I’d rather be unemployed and looking for employment that actually pays me rather than to be involved in a time-wasting situation, with no resolution in sight, like at Campbell’s, in which I’m not getting paid.
Couldn’t happen to a nice guy! I found him offensive and rude on a visit several years ago , and therefore he lost me, my family and many friends as customers…..so really not surprised. Can’t be successful in business unless you have happy and satisfied employees and then you have happy and satisfied customers.
California labor laws are some of the strictest (pro employee) in the nation, but its up to employees to notify the Labor Commission if they aren’t getting paid, getting proper overtime, getting required meal and rest breaks, etc. There are super specific laws regarding all those things for hourly employees. I feel terrible for the employees affected here. I have to say that I love the Geary location and hope the owner faces up to his obligations, pays all the past wages and fines and then sells the bakery to someone with some ethics who will treat the employees with decency and respect.
What was he thinking when he thought to expand to Fillmore Street? $10k/month rent shut down (Elizabeth Faulkner’s) Citizen Cake… I’ll bet the workers’ wages went to the landlords.
What a dirty dog,seems to be yet another greedy employer.All his kids work for him,bet they all got paid.Time to boycott this establishment until everyone has been paid.Too many fatcats screwing there staff.
Wow , it amazing the sympathy the employees are getting here and Hardly a word of sympathy for Campbell . Hello the guy just lost his shirt. 3 Stores he spent a fortune on setting up and running go bust and in the midst of one the greatest recessions in our history. When all the big corps and banks were busy getting Fed bail outs and at the same time firing 1000’s of staff , here was Campbell trying to do something good with a great product (albeit ,got a bit carried away thinking he was Starbucks) trying creating jobs etc . Do you really think he was out to screw his employees ?, the overheads got him , as he swam out the water started getting colder and colder and once your signed up to leases they have you by the short and curly’s .
Greedy Landlords and unsympathetic banks, insurance companies and all the Big city BS and State Laws that make it near impossible for a small guy to make it through the Red tape and Bureaucratic horse Sh…t . Same laws for Big corps as little mom pops.
Talk about kicking a man when he is down .
Thanks Mr. Campbell for all the great Scones and Brown bread and don’t let the B…..ds get you down.
Blabbermouth, I think if you should maybe read the whole article before you go polishing Campbells halo or compareing him to some David v Goliath.He has history with staff not being paid and failure to pay workers comp,long before he opened his last 2 stores.Don,t make excuses for lowlifes.
Sounds like a cash flow problem to me . coupled with lease’s and unmanageable overhead , Yes Roisin
and a un sympathetic banks who are un willing to extend a working capital to get you through the dips.
The only story you get from the media is , how he screwed his staff . Typical ! Nothing about how hard it is for a small company to grow, nothing about how much money did he lose , probably 100’s of K. Gone but all you here is the about the poor employees , the manager sited was making over $70k per year based on numbers reported.
As I said Roisin , Kick a man when he is down why don’t you. No one was a winner here.
Blabbermouth, I think you are associated to this establishment,you seem to know how much managers where being paid and so on.John Campbell would have set the managers wage at 70,000 not the employee,and must have thought him good enough to pay it, or not as the case seems to be.We are not talking a few 100 dollars here,that is large figures owed to his staff.I am sure no one put a gun to Campbells head when signing leases are loans from the bank.You need to stop making excuses for a lowlife,but as I said I think you have ulterior motives for defending such actions.Are you one of his kids?
Dear Rosin, firstly I have no connections, affiliations and have never met any of the family and know nothing about them accept I have eaten their very good Irish baked goods on occasion. My only contact is entering the store on Geary to buy scones etc over the few years after they opened on Geary and filling my bag , paying my money and saying, go raibh maith agat, accept I think the staff maybe did not understand what I said.
The fact is the guy lost his shirt . He started out with a good store and tried to duplicate that success in a couple of other locations and failed . Personally if an employer did not pay me after 1 week. I would be putting my employer on notice immediately. Then I find it hard to believe the staff would wait around for so long. Seems odd does it not ? Would you stay after the first week of no pay? then we must ask why his loyal staff stayed for so long ? were they offered a carrot to stay on with an attractive I.O.U in hope the businesses would turn around ? I think there is a big part of the story missing here and until Campbell and the disgruntled employees come on here and state the facts it useless of you and me commenting any further .
Is it wrong not to pay employees ? the answer is yes absolutely . My own policy would be pay staff first and ever one else is last , failing that , close up shop. All I can say is the staff must have been feed a dummy and on the basis of that stayed on in the hope of brighter future and a more lucrative deal .
Look I am sorry for the staff but I just as sorry for Campbell because he failed but not only did he fail Irish fresh food failed on a grandiose scale in San Francisco.
I think if Campbell’s expansion had been a success everyone would have got paid .
It is easy just to say he screwed everyone intentionally . This is where our opinions differ. As I said earlier kick a man when ( I assume John Campbell is male, as I told you I do know him or her) he is down. He Tried and is still trying and god loves a trier. No one is perfect. Anyway that’s why we have a court system and let the law takes it’s due course and justice will served . Though if there is no money to pay then the court will be just an expensive ass that it is, feeding over paid lawyers that will charge more in legal fees than the actual claim amount . What a system !
The david v’ Golliath argument is a fair argument personally I think the odds are stacked way to high against the small business owner v’s the large corporate structures they have to compete against , both are meant to comply in the same way and act the same way , it’s red tape bureaucratic nonsense that is slowly ruining this country all designed by large food companies to make life very difficult for little start ups and inhibit successful propagation . Most small business fail not because their product is bad but because the get boggled down in a blood sucking administrative
quango’s that sucks the goodness out of to many start ups.
Anyway the good news is John Campbell’s Original Bakery is still open for business, hopefully they will survive, thrive and learn from their past mistakes.
So their you go Roisin that’s my tuppenny bit !
Take care.
Blabbermouth .