Monday, March 25, 2013
The new owners of the South End's Upper Crust say the product is the same, but the management is entirely different.
It's new management and new faces for the South End's Upper Crust, as it reopens under new management after being closed for several months. The firm UC Acquisitions purchased the property in January along with locations in Wellesley, Watertown and Lexington during an auction after its previous owners filed for bankruptcy last year. The troubled pizza chain's former owner, Jordan Tobins, was accused of several labor issues including failing to pay employees their wages, allegedly relying on undocumented workers for labor, and using company money for personal use. Despite reports from some media outlets that the former owner Tobins was connected to the new ownership, Shawn Shenefield, Director of Operations at UC Acquisitions Shawn …
Monday, January 7, 2013
A judge reportedly rejected efforts to keep a firm connected to former Upper Crust workers from returning to the bankrupt pizzeria's storefront.
Weeks after an auction of assets belonging to the now-bankrupt The Upper Crust, an attorney representing former workers at the pizzeria chain reportedly failed in an effort to buy four of the chain's locations, including the now-closed location on Tremont Street in the South End. Lawyer Shannon Liss-Riordan had offered to pay $200,000 more than the offer sale price that had been accepted at auction last month for the Watertown, Wellesley, Lexington locations, and made a deal with the second-highest bidder for the South End location to increase his bid to $295k bid for the South End location. "We were the second highest bidder at the live auction, therefore we would get the location if the winner was disqualified," said Patrick Benzie in an…
Thursday, December 20, 2012
The South End location on Tremont Street was sold for $290,000, the top bid in the auction.
When Wednesday's auction of the embattled Upper Crust Pizzeria chain was done yesterday, and the smoke (somewhat) cleared, a company with ties to the pizzeria's founder, Jordan Tobins, reportedly had won control of the South End store site. The Boston Globe reports that a Ditmars Ltd. affiliate— a private equity firm connected to Tobins — submitted the high bid of $290,000 for the Tremont location. That offer, says the Globe report, is only for the store lease and restaurant equipment, not rights to use the Upper Crust name. The same company also won bids for the Lexington, Wellesley and Watertown store sites. The attorney representing immigrant workers said to have cheated of vast amounts of overtime pay won the bid for the Harvard …
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
The financially and legally troubled Boston-based pizza chain has shut some locations, including its South End location, and its future remains uncertain.
The locally owned pizza chain Upper Crust needs a cash infusion of a least a hundred thousand dollars to keep its doors open, or it could close forever, according to the Boston Globe. Upper Crust declared bankruptcy last month and is also in the midst of a scandal that it owes $850,000 to its workers in back wages, according to the US Department of Labor. A separate investigation into the company in 2009 found the company had also violated several labor laws and owed employees $425,000. At a hearing in US Bankruptcy Court Tuesday, the trustee, Mark G. DeGiacomo, said the company needed $120,000 to keep the doors open, according to the Globe. However, that cash did not come through. The chain has rapidly shut down 10 out of its 16 area …
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Labor department claims Boston restaurant chain cheated workers.
The U.S. Labor Department filed court papers claiming that Upper Crust pizzeria owes workers $850,000 in back wages, according a report by the Boston Globe. The company, founded on Beacon Hill in 2001, was found in a federal investigation to have violated minimum-wage and overtime laws between April 2009 and January 2011, largely by exploiting immigrant workers. This came on the back of a 2009 Labor Department investigation which ended in an order to pay workers $350,000 in back overtime. Upper Crust founder Jordan Tobins allegedly came up with a scheme to recoup this money by lowering employees' wages or firing them if they refused to give the mandated compensation back, the Globe reported. What followed was a 2010 class-action lawsuit …
Sara Jacobi
4:13 pm on Friday, April 5, 2013
MC & Kyle, I don't blame you! Everyone should make their own decisions on which businesses you choose to patronize. I hope the company is able to restore its reputation. more ›