Teenage workers are among women sexually harassed at Applebee’s in Alabama, according to a federal lawsuit

An Alabama restaurant franchisee is the target of a federal lawsuit filed Monday alleging the company failed to protect young female employees from sexual harassment at an Applebee’s.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Quality Restaurant Concepts, LLC, which operates the Applebee’s restaurant in Chelsea, in federal court in Birmingham.

“Given the frequency of the misconduct, management at the Chelsea restaurant should have been aware of the sexual harassment of female employees and failed to take prompt or corrective action to prevent or remedy the hostile environment it created,” the complaint states.

Quality Restaurant Concepts has not yet responded to the complaint in court filings. Birmingham attorney Rachel Barlotta released a statement to AL.com on Tuesday.

“As this matter is pending litigation, QRC is unable to provide detailed comment,” Barlotta said in an email. “However, QRC vigorously denies the allegations and looks forward to presenting its defense in court.”

A spokesman for Applebee’s did not respond to a request for comment.

In the lawsuit, the EEOC argues that the sexually hostile work environment violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“Many of the female employees in this case are teenagers who were new to the workplace and were unfamiliar with their rights,” said Marsha Rucker, regional attorney for the EEOC Birmingham District. “A priority of the EEOC is defending the civil rights of vulnerable young people, such as the youth employees in this case. The EEOC will continue to hold employers accountable when they fail to protect their employees from sexually hostile work environments.”

Birmingham-based Quality Restaurant Concepts operates 60 Applebee’s locations in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky, as well as several other restaurants, according to the company’s website and LinkedIn page.

Applebee’s Restaurant in Chelsea is located at 89 Chesser Plantation Lane, just off Highway 280.

The EEOC’s Birmingham office said in a statement that the restaurant’s male manager, other male employees and customers had harassed at least six female employees since last year with sexual comments, offensive behavior, unwanted advances and sexual contact.

And when Applebee’s franchisee received multiple complaints about the general manager, the company allowed him to continue working with the employees he had harassed and took no action, according to the EEOC.

According to the lawsuit, the male manager had in the past sexually harassed a 16-year-old female employee and another female employee at another of the franchisee’s Applebee’s restaurants in Pelham. He was reprimanded by the franchisee company for this in 2022, the lawsuit says.

But then in April 2023, he was promoted to general manager of the Chelsea restaurant, according to the EEOC.

The lawsuit says the manager made sexual comments to several female employees, including telling one employee to “take everything off” while offering dollar bills when her shirt got wet. The lawsuit also says the manager called employees, including a minor, “sluts” and once told workers he wanted to hire a woman so he could “stare at her breasts all day.”

The lawsuit alleges a male bartender flirted with an underage employee, repeatedly asked her out, and cornered and physically restrained her.

According to the lawsuit, a male chef commented on the body of a female employee. And another male employee touched her buttocks several times and made sexual jokes to her, the complaint says.

Male customers groped underage female employees and made other sexual comments with them, according to the complaint.

Two of the workers resigned because of the toxic work environment, the lawsuit says. According to the lawsuit, an underage employee resigned after complaining about sexual harassment and was fired from her server shifts.

The EEOC said it filed the lawsuit after an attempt to reach a settlement failed.

“Young workers are particularly vulnerable to harassment and other forms of discrimination in the workplace because they have less work experience, are less likely to know when someone is crossing a line, and may be afraid to report an older or more influential harasser,” said Karla Gilbride . General Counsel of the EEOC, in a statement.