Owners Miguel and Modesty Vidal said the restaurant will be closed until May 8 as they transition.
“For us, scaling our business from 600 sq. ft. to 6,000 sq. ft. has proven more than we can manage, and we recognize and admit to the many issues and challenges Valentina’s has had since we’ve moved,” the Vidals said in the post. “We can no longer continue to give our loyal customers sub par customer service and food.”
The couple recently expanded their south Austin food truck location to a new storefront in downtown Buda.
KXAN reached out to the owners for additional comment but has not heard back yet.
‘He’s unable to cash them’
A woman, who asked us to conceal her identity, said her son is an employee at the restaurant.
She said he has hundreds of dollars worth of checks that have bounced.
“The teller will tell him that there’s no funds in the account so he’s unable to cash them.”
Mother of Valentina’s Tex Mex BBQ Employee
She said her son would reach out to the owners to get paid, and they’d send the money via cash payment apps.
“Sometimes they would have to break up those payments, and they would give them part Zelle, part cash,” she said. “It was just never consistent.”
On top of that, she said he’s gone weeks without getting paid.
“In addition to these two, he’s still owed four weekly checks that he hasn’t received,” the woman said.
After hearing about the new management, she’s wondering what this means for her son.
“Are the current owners still responsible for paying that back wages that he’s owed? Do the new owners assume that debt? Those are questions I don’t know,” she said.
Ultimately, she hopes her son is one day paid what he’s owed.
“He’s an extremely hard worker,” she said. “It hurts me as a mom to see him not getting compensated for that.”
“Texas Workforce Commission is supposed to investigate and if they determined that wages are owed, they have enforcement procedures,” Langenfeld said. “They can levy bank accounts, the employers bank account. They can file liens against their assets.”
Langenfeld said that’s a faster process than filing a lawsuit.
“Their procedures are more streamlined and can seem to go quicker than if you were to hire maybe a lawyer and have to file a lawsuit and maybe end up going to trial, and then try to collect after that,” Langenfeld said.
Langenfeld said he gets calls about these types of situations pretty regularly.
“It’s usually from smaller businesses. A lot of times it’s the food industry. It’s restaurants,” Langenfeld said. “It’s the tourist industry.”
The Texas Workforce Commission told KXAN it received one wage claim for wages earned from Valentina’s Tex Mex BBQ.
The TWC said it does the following when a wage claim is made:
Mail a letter to the person filing the claim confirming receipt and giving a summary of the claim process
Mail a letter to the employer with a copy of the claim, supporting documents, and a form for the employer to complete to provide a response
Contact the claimant and employer for additional information, as needed
Mail a “Preliminary Wage Determination Order” letter to both parties once a determination is made
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