Local Coffee Shop Brews Tension Over Former Employees’ Unpaid Wages

By Undria Wilson 

Perk-Up, a local hotspot coffeehouse, has brewed tension between former employees demanding to receive pay from their former boss.

The locally-owned establishment is relatively new to the San Marcos area and is a staple in a boisterous college community in the heart of Central Texas.

But the fresh scent of coffee doesn’t convey to the wrongful termination of three employees, all Texas State University students.

The former employees considered their boss, David Graffagnini, as a friend and mentor. Still, over the last few months, Graffagnini has refused to respond to his employee’s requests for overdue paychecks from July 2019.

Former employees also reported unprofessional behavior and being fired without a reasonable explanation.

Among the complaints, former employees witnessed unprofessional behavior from management.

Senior Stephen MacLaren began working at Perk Up at the end of May and had received positive feedback from the owner of his performance at the shop.

MacLaren said he noticed one night his shift had been deleted from the schedule and reached out to his co-worker to find out why.

“David said that he didn’t know why the shift was deleted,” he explains, “But he said I could have the day off because he had someone else that wanted to work that day.

MacLaren said he was at Six Flags on his day off when he received a phone call from David.

 “He just told me ‘We got all your shifts covered for you,’” MacLaren said. “When I tried asking him why he brought up that whole thing about how I didn’t want to work because someone wanted to work my shift. It didn’t really make sense because he was one who deleted my shift.”

MacLaren said when he asked for further clarification and explanation, he was hung up on and later called back with the explanation that someone else had called him.

“He was still pretty pissed off,” MacLaren said. “On my end, I tried to stay pretty respectful,”

But MacLaren wasn’t the only Texas State student employee to experience the unexplained termination.

Like many college students, surviving on your own paycheck can be crucial to one’s livelihood if they don’t have the family support to stay above ground.

Text message exchanges between the three employees and their former manager seemed to get hostile and vulgar.

The former manager eventually removed both Stanley and another employee, Audrey Kate, from the group message and stated that anyone could take their shifts given they were no longer employed.

Audrey Kate, a Texas State, who started working for the company in April, decided to quit a few months later after delayed payment and being put in “uncomfortable situations.”

“He handed a $500 hundred dollar check to one of the girls who he had fired, and she obviously worked more than that. She got paid $10 an hour and was working another job where she got paid $200 a month for social media,” she explains.

According to MacLaren, their boss fired another girl and admitted to the staff that he could not pay them money because he was switching banks and could not afford to pay any of the staff.

Former staff said there was no orientation or application given during the initial hiring process.

Faith Stanley, a Texas State Sophomore, who worked at the popular coffeehouse for a year and a half, states that she was wrongfully terminated via text message and humiliated by her former boss.

According to Stanley, she and another co-worker reached out to David to ask if the company was doing okay.

“[I told him] ‘I’m just asking because I know our pay has been really delayed, and I just want to make sure everything is all right,’” Stanley said. “And that’s whenever he texted me and told me I was acting like a homeless person and to be patient.”

The business started to receive phone calls about overdue payments, and random visits from real estate investors began to make the staff worried. When the staff inquired about what was going on with their checks, David replied, “Sue me.”

The students reached out to Texas State University’s student lawyer to take matters to a civil level but were advised that the legal action, cost, and fees would total more than the hundreds of dollars they were owed.

For some of the students, the process was not only a financial burden but also a mental burden as well.

“It got so bad, I had to run favors for money,” Kate explained, “I had to ask for help with rent and to put gas in my car.”

“I had to ask for help with rent. I couldn’t fill my gas tank for a little while. I barely had $10 in my bank account. It got so bad, I had to run favors for money,” explained Kate.

Although the students have found other sources of income and stable employment, they are still seeking compensation for the loss of wages.

Corridor News reached out to Graffagnini for a comment but could not get ahold of him.

Terra Rivers, Managing Editor, contributed to this article.