- Current and former Ruby Tuesday employees say the chain is closing restaurants without telling staff.
- One former employee told Business Insider they went to work last Thursday only to see moving trucks carting furniture from the restaurant.
- Three current employees told Business Insider that they knew of other Ruby Tuesday restaurants being closed without notice.
- The chain appears to be rapidly collapsing, having closed more than a third of its locations this year — some even after it received millions in loans from the Paycheck Protection Program.
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Some Ruby Tuesday employees say the company is ghosting its workers.
The chain appears to be rapidly collapsing, having closed more than 150 locations in 2020 out of about 450 global restaurants — some even after it received millions of dollars in small-business loans from the Paycheck Protection Program.
Workers told Business Insider that Ruby Tuesday wasn't notifying all employees of planned restaurant closures, resulting in some showing up to work only to find out they're out of a job. WROC in Rochester, New York, reported on one such incident last year.
The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, known as WARN, requires employers with more than 100 full-time workers to notify employees of closures or layoffs at least 60 days in advance. However, employers with fewer than 50 full-time workers at a single location are exempt, and most noncorporate Ruby Tuesday employees are part-time.
Business Insider repeatedly reached out to Ruby Tuesday for comment on this article but did not receive a response. Calls to Ruby Tuesday's corporate office went straight to voicemail.
A former chef at a Ruby Tuesday in Fort Wayne, Indiana, told Business Insider that when he went in for his shift on Thursday, he was greeted by the sight of moving trucks. He said management told him that the restaurant had permanently closed but that he could stay to help load up the trucks.
The chef said that because of the sudden, unexpected loss of his job, he "will be homeless soon."
Three current employees told Business Insider that it was common for the chain to close restaurants without notifying employees.
"If a store is shutting down permanently, Ruby Tuesday never, ever, ever, ever gives notice to anyone," a Ruby Tuesday server in Missouri who's been with the company for 14 years told Business Insider. "The district manager will call the general manager literally the night before and say, 'Hey, you're being shut down. Tonight is your last day of being open. Don't tell anyone until tomorrow.'"
A Ruby Tuesday bartender, also in Missouri, said his manager had closed another Ruby Tuesday location in this manner, having received directions from corporate not to tell employees until the last possible moment.
"They didn't find out until right when they were about to close," the bartender said.
A server in Philadelphia told Business Insider that when the chain closed six nearby restaurants in the past year and a half, it often failed to notify staff of the closures.
"My friend worked at one of the ones that closed down during the pandemic, and he walked in to get his check, and there was a sign on the door that said this restaurant is now closed," the Philadelphia server said. "They used to sometimes transfer you to a new location, but they don't do that anymore because other locations are struggling. They put a sign on the door, and you come to work, and you realize you have no job."
All three employees told Business Insider they don't expect the company to last much longer. They also said that any loyalty they once had to the company is already gone.
"I've been in this industry a long time, and how Ruby Tuesday operates, they just don't care," the Philadelphia server said. "They don't care about the guests. They don't care about the employees."
