the Lucky King LLC / Miyako Japanese Buffet Investigation Teaches Every Restaurant Employer
On September 3, 2026, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division announced that Lucky King LLC, operating as Miyako Japanese Buffet in Pompano Beach, Florida, will pay $732,976 in back wages to 31 employees. It’s a case that’s easy to read past as “just another restaurant fine” – but the underlying violation is one of the most common patterns I saw during my time as a DOL investigator, and it’s one I still see employers walk into unknowingly: paying a flat “salary” and assuming that alone satisfies wage and hour law.
What happened
- Employees were paid a flat monthly salary, ranging from $1,000 to $3,000, regardless of how many hours they actually worked.
- Those employees routinely worked more than 40 hours a week.
- Because the monthly pay didn’t scale with hours worked, employees fell below minimum wage in some weeks and received no overtime premium despite regularly exceeding 40 hours.
- The employer also failed to maintain the accurate time and pay records the FLSA requires.
- The result: $732,976 owed to 31 workers, an average of $23,644.39 per employee.
Why the “salary” trap matters more than it looks
This is the pattern I want to flag, because it’s rarely a deliberate scheme – it’s usually a misunderstanding of what “salary” actually means under the FLSA. Here’s the mechanic: paying someone a fixed amount per pay period does not, by itself, exempt them from minimum wage or overtime. To be exempt, an employee generally has to meet both a duties test (executive, administrative, or professional job functions) and a minimum salary threshold – and most kitchen, service, and buffet-line staff simply don’t meet either one.
When a flat salary is paid to a non-exempt employee, the law doesn’t stop applying – it just gets harder to see the violation. You still have to divide total pay by hours actually worked to confirm the employee cleared minimum wage every week, and you still owe time-and-a-half for every hour over 40. A salary that looks generous on paper can quietly fall below minimum wage the moment someone works a 55- or 60-hour week, which is common in restaurant service.
The takeaway for employers
- “Salaried” is not a magic word. Confirm every salaried role actually meets an FLSA exemption test before assuming it’s overtime-exempt.
- If a role isn’t exempt, track actual hours worked and calculate pay against both the minimum wage floor and the overtime threshold every pay period – a flat number won’t hold up in either direction.
- Recordkeeping isn’t optional. Missing time records were cited alongside the pay violations here, and they remove your ability to show the DOL what actually happened.
- Restaurant and food-service payroll is a recurring enforcement target. A self-audit before a complaint or investigation is materially cheaper than the back-wage bill.
If you’re paying restaurant or hospitality staff a flat salary and haven’t confirmed the role is properly exempt, this is a good moment to check.
Is Your Restaurant’s Salaried Staff Properly Classified?
A misclassification like the one above can cost far more than a compliance review. Get a free consultation to check your current classifications before a complaint or DOL investigation forces the issue.
FAQ Additions
Does paying an employee a salary automatically make them exempt from overtime?
No. Salary is only one part of the FLSA exemption test. The employee’s actual job duties also have to meet the requirements for an executive, administrative, or professional exemption, and the salary has to meet the minimum threshold. Most hourly-type restaurant and service roles paid a flat salary don’t qualify, which means minimum wage and overtime rules still apply based on actual hours worked.
How can a restaurant tell if its “salaried” staff are actually owed overtime?
Divide the salary by the actual hours worked in a representative week. If that rate falls below minimum wage in any week, or if the employee regularly works more than 40 hours without receiving an overtime premium, the role is very likely misclassified. A wage and hour self-audit can confirm this before it becomes a DOL finding.
What records does the FLSA require employers to keep on hours and pay?
Employers must maintain accurate records of hours worked and wages paid for non-exempt employees, including start and end times. Missing or estimated records – as cited in the Miyako Buffet case – make it far harder to defend pay practices in an investigation and can be treated as a separate violation.