So I was somewhat gob smacked this morning when I logged into the Delco Times and saw an article about Fearless Restaurants and a lawsuit they recently lost.
Fearless Restaurant Group as in White Dog Cafe etc and my head is spinning. Is this guy still employed by them? How long has he been employed by them? How many of their restaurants has he worked in? Why would they have somebody on staff like this for so long? I have to ask what is the point of having a “good employee” from their owner perspective if he ends up costing them money in litigation later on? Is he still employed by them?
Excerpt:
Philadelphia-area restaurant group won a $200,000 verdict after suing the company for protecting and enabling a sexual predator.
The lawsuit, filed in Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas by attorney Ryan Grace, alleged two claims of negligence against Fearless Restaurant LLC, and two claims of assault and battery against Daniel Razionale, 37, Philadelphia.
Related article and excerpt:
Two former employees of a Philadelphia-area restaurant group have filed a lawsuit alleging the company protected and enabled a known sexual predator, allowing him to continue victimizing female employees while transferring him from property to property.
The lawsuit, filed in Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas by attorney Ryan Grace on behalf of two women, alleges two claims of negligence against Fearless Restaurant LLC, and two claims of assault and battery against Daniel Razionale.
“In the complaint, we allege that a restaurant group that owns White Dog Cafe and other large establishments hired a man who was already on sex offender probation, let him molest multiple female co-workers, then sided with the abuser and tried to ostracize the victims from the Philadelphia area restaurant industry,” Grace said in a statement. “Fearless Restaurants seems to think that waitresses have to put up with being victimized and that getting groped is just part of their job. We are honored to help these women fight back against that toxic attitude in the service industry.”
After I posted the Delco Times article, people on social media said this wasn’t the first time litigation had been levied against this restaurant group for sexual harassment related things which I had never known. I thought they were making it up until I found the Philadelphia Magazine article from 2016:
https://www.phillymag.com/news/2016/01/22/white-dog-cafe-wayne-sexual-harassment-lawsuit/
Excerpt:
Dad Sues White Dog Cafe for Sexual Harassment on Behalf of Late Daughter
The restaurant’s owner Marty Grims calls the suit, which he has yet to be served with, “totally ridiculous” and says there is “absolutely no basis” for it.
by Victor Fiorillo· 1/22/2016, 11:47 a.m.
📌…”The lawsuit was filed last week by an Upper Darby father on behalf of his late daughter who, according to health department records, died by suicide on August 24, 2011, at the age of 21. The daughter, a West Philadelphia resident, worked at the Wayne location of the White Dog Cafe starting in 2010, and according to the lawsuit, she was subjected to unwanted advances and other forms of sexual harassment while employed there. (The names have been withheld out of respect to the family.)”📌
OK, I wasn’t aware of a toxic work culture, but if somebody who just patronizes a restaurant or two in a restaurant group occasionally, how would you know? Of course now this makes me wonder why sometimes when you go into one of these restaurants, they seem shortstaffed, right?
Then people started saying “oh well this isn’t the first time this guy has been charged with stuff like this.”
And guess what? It isn’t.
https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/radnor-prowler-arrest-main-line/3604283/
https://patch.com/pennsylvania/radnor/peeping-tom-arrested-second-time-radnor-police
Of course, this all doesn’t jive with the other image this person is trying to cultivate does it?
https://bmmagazine.co.uk/business/an-interview-with-daniel-razionale-exploring-paths-less-traveled/
I am literally just shaking my head. I am having a disconnect in my head of how a successful restaurant group with the founder’s daughter also at the helm had an employee like this? And all this stuff which amounts to a toxic work environment and culture?
I just don’t understand how as a woman in a managerial/ownership/leadership position you would want an employee like that? And I am bearing in mind that they want to give this person a second chance at a rehabilitated life but how long do problems continue before you deal with them?
And this man who’s been charged with this stuff, he’s sick, isn’t he? So why move him around like the articles indicate from restaurant to restaurant like a freaking pedophile priest in the archdiocese of Philadelphia and not get him help?
Here we are at 2026 and women are still being sexually harassed like it’s nothing in the workplace and when will it stop but then again women are still being raped at frat parties in college so when will that stop? Are young women new to corporate America in some cases being warned like I was once upon a time decades ago to keep my back to the wall when a certain male employee was in the copier room?
Sign me really disappointed in this restaurant group. Suffice to say it’s been a bad news cycle week for restaurants and restaurant groups in this area lately hasn’t it?
