Lee’s Deli closes all locations in San Francisco after 40 years in business, 17 workers recover unpaid wages by seeking help from Chinese Progressive Association

(SAN FRANCISCO) After 40 years in business, Lee’s Deli fast food restaurant closed all of its 14 locations in San Francisco downtown starting 2023 and ending in February 2024. The restaurant also owed wages from its workers. 17 of them were not able to recover their unpaid wages until recently through the advocacy of the Chinese Progressive Association and a group of workers rights organizations.

The Chinese Progressive Association (CPA) announced on June 6 in a press conference that 17 former workers of Lee’s Deli won a total of $60,000 settlement from their former employer.

No worker spoke in the press conference held at the CPA office. According to the information provided by CPA, 17 workers included former dishwashers, prep cooks, sandwich makers, cashiers, and office workers at Lee's Deli.

All 17 workers and the owner of Lee's Deli are of Chinese descent or Chinese Americans. Lee Quan founded Lee's Deli in 1983 as a fast food restaurant serving breakfast and lunches for workers in the financial and downtown areas. The restaurant provided Chinese and western food including sandwiches, coffee, bagels, salads and noodles.

Lee's Deli had once grown to 16 locations before the COVID pandemic in 2020. In 2023, 12 of 14 locations closed permanently. The only two locations left also closed in February 2024.

Quan was interviewed by a number of news media in February 2024. "COVID has been a disease for us and we tried to open six to eight stores in the beginning in 2021, and it was ugly. There was just nobody around - we can't do business," Quan told KGO TV station in an interview.

Although the COVID pandemic has been slowing down since 2023, Quan said there had not been enough customers for his restaurants to survive, since customers were mainly coming to work in or near the financial district for about two or three days a week.

Quan also pointed to inflation, multiple minimum wage hikes in recent years in San Francisco, and a lack of support from the city and state leaders after the COVID. "Did they do anything to really help us? No. What things they did were insufficient to deal with the problem. We needed people to come back in and we needed the homeless people out," Quan spoke to the KGO reporter with frustration on the city leaders.

Wind Newspaper has reached out to Quan's lawyer for comments. But no response was received from Quan by press time.

Joyce Lam, Acting Co-Director of CPA, said in the press conference that four former Lee's Deli workers approached CPA in January 2024 for support in filing wage claims with the San Francisco's Office of Labor Standards & Enforcement. At that time two locations were still open.

The remaining two locations of Lee's Deli also closed in February 2024. In March 2024, a total of 20 former Lee's Deli workers sent a letter to Lee's Deli with the support of CPA asking to meet to discuss back payment for wages and other amounts owed.

The City's Office of Labor Standards & Enforcements and Lee's Deli owner began the negotiation for settlement in March 2024. The settlement was reached in May 2024 to pay back all wages and a week of vacation pay for 17 workers with a total amount of approximately $60,000.

17 former Lee's Deli workers were all Chinese immigrants. Lei Pan was one of them. He began working at Lee's Deli when he immigrated to the United States from China in 2005. "When I left Lee’s Deli last May, I thought the boss would actually pay us back. But [when the business closed], he didn't pay us back, and there was no indication that he was going to. We felt that if we didn't take action, we would not get the wages we were owed,” Pan said in a statement provided by CPA.

In addition to CPA, the victory for the Lee's Deli workers was a successful partnership between the city agency and a group of non-profit workers rights organizations under the Workers Rights Community Collaborative (WRCC).

WRCC is contracted through the City's Office of Labor Standards & Enforcement to conduct outreach and education to workers about their rights. Member organizations of the WRCC are Asian Law Caucus, Chinese Progressive Association, Dolores Street Community Services, Filipino Community Center, La Raza Centro Legal, South of Market Community Action, and Trabajadores Unidos Workers United.

Mayor London Breed has proposed a nearly 50% cut to the WRCC for Fiscal Year 2024-2025. Representatives from WRCC's member organizations urged the City to reconsider the budget proposal.

“The proposed budget cuts undermine protections for low-income communities. When workers know their rights and can access help through a lengthy legal process, they are able to pull through economic crises, continue to care for their families, and stay in San Francisco,” said Mei Mei Chan of Asian Law Caucus.