Wash Park Grille: Workers receive $177k in back pay settlement

Fifty-six former employees of Wash Park Grille and Agave Taco Bar will split a $177,244 settlement announced this week by Denver Labor. The funds cover unpaid wages owed during the 2024 holiday season, a period that ended with the final closure of the restaurants in February 2025. Each worker will receive $2,093, an amount that includes the base back pay plus a 70% penalty for damages.

The dispute began when the long-time neighborhood establishments stopped operating permanently. Wash Park Grille opened in 1997 and served as a social hub on Old South Gaylord Street for more than two decades. Jeff Estey and Greg Sauber founded the venue, later adding Agave Taco Bar in 2013. After Sauber died in 2022, his estate filed a lawsuit in 2024 alleging that Estey failed to execute a succession plan to buy out Sauber's shares using life insurance proceeds. That case settled, but the city quickly seized the properties for more than $30,000 in unpaid taxes.

The restaurants reopened briefly for the holidays before closing for good. Workers who did not receive their final pay filed complaints with Denver Labor, triggering a formal wage theft investigation. The Denver Labor announcement noted that the remaining owner ignored requests for information and claimed no records existed for the final pay period. The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment also participated in the inquiry after receiving similar complaints.

Denver Labor executive director Matthew Fritz-Mauer attributed the success of the settlement to the employees' own record-keeping. Because the ownership refused to cooperate, the workers' personal documentation proved essential. Fritz-Mauer stated that workers should keep paystubs, receipts, and tip logs because business owners often discard these files. He added that a worker's own records may be the only proof of earnings when wage theft occurs.

The building that housed Wash Park Grille is now occupied by Wash Park Social. The settlement marks another recovery for the city's labor division, which reported recovering $2.31 million in back pay and penalties from similar investigations in 2025. The department did not specify the exact dates of the unpaid work, but the funds cover the period leading up to the February 2025 shutdown.

Estey, the remaining owner, did not issue a separate statement beyond the department's findings. The settlement resolves the claims filed by the group of 56 employees who worked at the two locations during the final months of operation.