Employees Forced To Take Over When Quiznos Sub Shop Owner Abandons Store

[matcom]

<snip>

It was a scene right out of "Home Alone," but the locale was a Quiznos Sub shop in North Seattle, where the franchise owner was absent for weeks and the skeleton crew made due with a dwindling food supply and a lot of irate customers.

"Due to bad owners we are out of a lot of things, please do not get mad at the employees & manager," explained the cardboard sign on the door.

Inside, the dessert section was empty, the chip shelves were mostly bare (except for jalapeño chips) and the soda machine was fringed with little white "out of order" signs (except for Vanilla Coke).

"I'll have a large Out of Order," cracked one customer on Tuesday.

"Is that with ice or without?" Dawna Lentz, the store manager, shot back.

Things had been this way since November, Lentz said, just a month after the sub shop opened in a little strip mall on Holman Road.

Reluctant to quit because of a tough job market, the 25-year-old Lentz kept the restaurant running, relying on the loyalty of the shop's few remaining employees and her own scrappy improvisation.

Since food vendors would no longer deliver on credit, Lentz drove to discount grocers to buy lunchmeat, using cash from the previous day's till. She bought the special Quiznos bread from other franchises, rationing part of what was left after the lunch rush, so there would be enough for the crew working the dinner shift.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002170453_quiznos04.html

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. Cripes!

How bizarre is that?

[Liberal Veteran]

2. They should go to court to take ownership of the store.

Since it has been abandoned.

[SmileyBoy]

7. Exactly. I agree 100 percent.

Make it a cooperative-owned Quizno's store.

[Ediacara]

3. How are these employees getting payed?

[TreasonousBastard]

4. Wierd, but I wanna know...

more, like

what happened to the owner who laid out a bundle for a franchise and then split-- stupid, dead, or ran off with the cash from a big loan?

Howcum the company finds out about this three months later?

This Lentz woman is forbidden to speak to the press????

[havocmom]

5. My daughter worked for a boss like that once, 12 years ago. She is still

waiting to be paid for the last month when the kids held the place together and she made deliveries in her own car, paying for fuel out of her own pocket. The kids tried to keep some food in the place to cook and sell while they were going hungery.

The owner had other priorities: like pulling cash outta the till to make bail for his string of hookers.

The state of AZ would not do a thing to help all the employess get their back wages from the asshole because each of them was owed so little. Told them to get lawyers and sue him for their $$! These kids were selling everything they owned to pay their rent, they were living on ramen and pooling resources so the young women could buy the monthly supplies they needed! And the state of AZ blew them off.

[Historic NY]

6. They should give those employees the franchise..........

with ambition to adapt, overcome and keep going the company should be happy to have them.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

9. Right on!

What spunk.

[HEyHEY]

8. I wouldn't work there - what are the chances of your paycheque clearing?