Red Robin flies off with workers' pay

Town of Wallkill - Kara Doyle peered through the restaurant window at the pile of checks on the edge of the bar. "There's the paycheck I couldn't get," she said, tapping on the window. "My money is sitting right there." As a server at Red Robin Gourmet Burgers on Crystal Run Road, her paycheck wasen't much, maybe a few dozen bucks. But that money would have helped pay for the Mother's Day present she couldn't buy this year. Doyle's manager, Jennifer Jurchenko, told her she wouldn't be getting that check, her last, on Friday. A U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge ordered the burger joint closed. Jurchenko gathered all the employees on the back patio at 2:30 p.m., the manager said. She ran back inside and went from table to table, asking customers to leave. Owner Joe Scotti sat on the patio, smoking a cigar, taking it all in. Dozens of employees like Doyle, 23, were out of jobs. Her boyfriend Adam Parola, 20, a full-time kitchen expediter, won't get the $300 paycheck he was expecting. Their two friends, Joey Rivers and Dan Mattiello, don't know how they'll come up with rent for the appartment they share. "I want everyone to know about it and something to be done," Doyle said. A Red Robin official said the company is directing the workers to contact the lawyers handling the bankruptcy case to see if anything can be done about their paychecks. The company does not own the restaurant and officials do not know why the owners had to file for bankruptcy, said Kerri Workman, director of field marketing. Scotti's lawyer did not return a call seeking comment yesterday. Doyle and her friends knew the restaurant was in trouble, even through they say it was bringing in $50,000 per week in sales, according to tallies they saw. Their paychecks had been bouncing for six months. That's right around the time the owners of the franchise initially filed for bankruptcy protection, though the employees did not know about that. Doyle figured out that if she drove to the bank immediately after getting her check, it would clear. If she waited till the end of the day for other workers to cash their checks, it would bounce. "It was like a race to the bank," she said. There were other signs of calamity. Vendors started to only accept cash for deliveries. Mattiello, a bartender, had to drive to a liquor store to restock the bar. And when the special glasses for Freckled Lemonade, a strawberry lemonade concoction, broke, Mattiello wasn't allowed to buy more. "I kind of feel like a sucker for staying here so long," Parola said.