Restaurant workers at 13 Tropical Grille locations in upstate South Carolina have recovered $618,666 in back wages and tips after a U.S. Department of Labor investigation. The department announced on August 24, 2026, that the restaurant group paid the money to 779 employees after investigators found managers sharing in employee tip pools, overtime shortfalls for people who worked at more than one location, recordkeeping failures and child labor violations. The company also paid $100,000 in civil money penalties.
Where the 779 workers were employed
According to the Wage and Hour Division announcement, the back wages cover workers at Tropical Grille restaurants in Anderson, Clemson, Easley, Greer, Lexington, Mauldin, Simpsonville and Spartanburg, along with five Greenville locations on Pelham Road, Old Buncombe Road, South Main Street, Verdae Boulevard and Woodruff Road. The chain is owned by Lazaro and Shadid Montoto, Insurance Journal reported.
The two sums are different kinds of money. The $618,666 is back pay owed to the 779 employees. The $100,000 is a civil money penalty assessed for the child labor and tip retention violations, and it is paid to the government rather than to workers. Averaged across the workforce, the back pay comes to roughly $794 per person, although individual amounts depend on each employee’s hours, tips and locations.
Tropical Grille told FOX Carolina that the federal investigation began in 2024, that it “cooperated fully with the investigation, paid the amounts determined to be owed,” and that it has changed its policies and procedures. The company described the violations as non-willful.
Tip money and back pay in one ledger. Recovered wages can arrive long after the shifts that earned them, which makes it harder to match a deposit to the pay period behind it. The protected-funds and dispute log in The Bank Account & Debt Protection Kit keeps each deposit tied to its source.
Why managers cannot share in a tip pool
The Fair Labor Standards Act prohibits employers, including managers and supervisors, from keeping any portion of employees’ tips. The Labor Department’s guidance on tips explains that this bar applies whether the employer takes the tips directly or lets managers and supervisors participate in a tip pool. Tips belong to the employees who receive them, and a tip pool may be shared only among eligible workers.
Tropical Grille said many of its managers work alongside hourly staff, preparing food and serving guests, and that it had interpreted the rules to allow them to share in tips earned through that frontline work. The department disagreed. As the company described the outcome, anyone who meets the federal definition of a manager or supervisor cannot take part in an employee tip pool, regardless of the other duties that person performs.
Tip pool violations matter more in South Carolina than in many states. South Carolina has no state minimum wage law, so the federal floor of $7.25 an hour applies, and employers who take a tip credit may pay tipped workers a cash wage as low as $2.13 an hour. For servers and bartenders on that pay structure, tips make up most of their income, and every dollar diverted from the pool comes directly out of take-home pay.
Second jobs at the same chain count toward overtime
The investigation also found that Tropical Grille failed to combine hours for employees who worked at more than one of its locations. Under the federal overtime rule, covered nonexempt employees must be paid one and one-half times their regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek. When the same employer is responsible for two jobs, the hours at both generally must be added together for that calculation.
According to the company, workers who topped 40 hours at a single restaurant received overtime. The shortfall involved employees who picked up a second job at another Tropical Grille location that was managed separately. Neither location’s payroll showed more than 40 hours on its own, but federal investigators determined the hours had to be combined.
This is a common trap for people who stitch together several part-time shifts, including retirees and older workers who add restaurant or retail hours to Social Security or pension income. Two schedules and two pay stubs from related locations can hide overtime that neither paycheck reflects. Keeping a personal log of the dates, sites and start and end times for every shift makes it possible to add up the full week.
Child labor findings and the compliance agreement
Investigators also found that Tropical Grille allowed 14- and 15-year-olds to work longer and later than federal child labor rules permit, and that it violated the hazardous occupation provisions of the FLSA. The company told FOX Carolina the hazardous work finding included 17-year-olds delivering food, which federal rules treat as a hazardous job even for a teen with a valid driver’s license.
Under a compliance agreement with the department, the employer must update or create materials on child labor compliance and provide annual training on child labor rules for managers and supervisors, among other requirements. The department points families and employers to its free YouthRules! site for information on the hours and tasks allowed for younger workers.
How workers can check whether money is owed
This recovery was not a class action settlement with an open claim form. It covers the 779 workers identified in the investigation, and there is no fee to receive back wages collected by the Wage and Hour Division. Any caller offering to secure a share in exchange for payment should be treated as a likely scam.
Former employees who believe they are owed money can check the division’s free Workers Owed Wages search tool, which lists back wages the agency has collected but has not been able to deliver. The division also takes questions and confidential complaints through its contact page and its toll-free helpline, 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243). Federal wage claims generally must be pursued within two years, or three years for willful violations, so older pay problems should not be left to sit.
Keeping recovered wages safe once they arrive
Workers who juggled shifts at two locations now face a different job: confirming that the back pay they receive matches the hours and tips they were shorted, and making sure that money stays available if a creditor or collector is also in the picture.
The Bank Account & Debt Protection Kit includes a protected-funds and dispute log for matching deposits to their source, along with the debt-validation steps and the frozen-account response for handling pressure on an account.
Put the dispute log to work with The Bank Account & Debt Protection Kit.
This article was prepared with AI assistance and reviewed against the linked official sources.
