Long-standing Miller’s Bar in Dearborn, a beloved burger joint known for its no-frills atmosphere and “honor system” payment methods, has been sold to new owners. Founded by George Miller more than 80 years ago, it has been run by his nephews Dennis and Mark Miller for nearly 50 years. The brothers put it up for sale for $4 million in October 2021, looking to retire. Dennis Miller died a year later, but Mark Miller continued to run the bar until now.
Dearborn-raised businessman Allie Mallad purchased Miller’s and the switch in ownership occurred on Monday, Jan. 8. Its new manager Gary Christmas tells Metro Times that nothing will change about the local favorite, except that the bar will now be open on Sundays.
However, there is more to the story.
Former employee Jennifer Drewyore-Beck, who began working at Miller’s as a bartender in July 2022, alleges that the previous owners were stealing wages from her and numerous other workers throughout her entire employment. The bartenders who made $6 an hour and the waitresses who made $4 an hour were forced to equally split their tips with the cooks, who made at least $10 an hour, which is against the law under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
“Tip wage workers cannot tip pool with minimum wage or above workers,” she says. “There’s going to be this inequity in the two waitresses that are doing more front-facing customer service that are making the least amount and then have to give up more of their tips… That can’t happen.”
Additionally, she says employees at Miller’s Bar did not clock in and clock out, and if anyone worked over their scheduled hours, they weren’t paid for the extra time.
In response to these issues, Drewyore-Beck launched a Department of Labor case against Miller’s Bar on April 5, 2023. The same day, she sent a message to her coworkers in the 7shifts employee scheduling system letting them know, which she says resulted in her being promptly removed from the app and from all of her shifts. She says she was never contacted about it by management.
On April 28, 2023, Drewyore-Beck’s attorney, Tony Paris of Sugar Law, a nonprofit law center providing advocacy for workers’ rights, filed an ongoing charge against Miller’s Bar with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
“The [old] owners violated federal laws by requiring servers to tip out back-of-the-house employees and then fired employees (or took them off the schedule) for speaking up about it,” Paris tells Metro Times via email. “So pretty much it’s a tip/wage theft case with retaliation elements to it.”
Miller’s Bar has since entered into a settlement with the U.S. Department of Labor Wage & Hour division for back pay regarding wage theft. Drewyore-Beck and some other employees have received letters from Miller’s Bar with checks for a portion of their back pay, although the bar states that they are not “admitting wrongdoing.”
The full scope of the case is currently being investigated, but Paris and Drewyore-Beck believe that around 40-50 people who worked at the bar over the past two years are involved and that settlement numbers could be upwards of $50,000-$100,000.
With a change in ownership, there could have been a fresh slate for the Dearborn business, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Paris says that the new owners are re-interviewing long-time employees for their positions alongside old owner Mark Miller.
On Jan. 8, Drewyore-Beck’s sister Kina Kozen was told out of the blue that she had to re-interview and the new management told her that they would let her know if she could keep her job by the following day, Paris says. However, she has not been allowed to work any of her shifts, has been removed from the schedule, and is being kept in limbo as Miller’s Bar has still not let her know if she has been fired or not.
“This means that the new owners are also in violation of the law,” Paris adds. “She had experience working there for quite some time, she had seniority, and she barely, if ever, called off. There’s no issues with her performance.”
Christmas, the bar’s new manager, says that the re-interviews are part of having “a new business,” even though nothing is supposed to change, and that the new ownership and management are “very aware” of the ongoing wage theft cases.
“In our mind, those disputes are resolved as best they can be. I believe there’s still one outstanding case and, according to Mark, that’s in the process of being taken care of, so we’re not worried about it,” Christmas says. “That’s his company in the past, we’re the new owner of this company.”
He says that Mallad and Mark Miller go way back as friends and that Mallad has been going to Miller’s as a customer for decades.
“Mark has been trying to sell the business for a couple of years and he had some other buyers but the other buyers wanted to come in and change the business and change the honor system and change the burgers and change the process and Mark didn’t want to do that,” Christmas says. “So he mentioned that to Allie and they made an agreement, so we’re keeping it the same. We’re going to open on Sundays, but same burgers, same fries, same onion rings, same high level of service, and same high level of quality.”
“First of all, these are very, very low-wage workers and to steal from very, very low-wage workers on top of paying them a very, very low wage and then to say that they don’t want to work, it’s a whole difficult ethical conundrum that I’m having a very, very hard time with.”
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He adds that with the new ownership, Miller’s kept some of the old staff, plus brought on some new faces that are “good quality service-oriented people,” so the spot can stay open the extra day.
“To open on the first day, we had to hire people,” he says. “The interview process happened, we have to as a business, do the right things for the business, so some of the people were rehired immediately, and some of the people are still in the interview process.”
Paris and Drewyore-Beck say they are disappointed. “Instead of just doing what they were supposed to do from the beginning or listening to their workers, they decided to double down and it’s not gonna be good,” Paris says. “It’s still really important that whoever goes to Miller’s is aware that there are two or three or more legal cases still going on during the sale and the new ownership. If he wanted to start with a clean start, he already messed that up. We’re at a spot where they are just trying to get anybody out who is one of those people associated with the case, and they’re not allowed to do that legally.”
On top of the U.S. Department of Labor settlement, Paris plans to open a further federal lawsuit for punitive and emotional damages that are not included.
“I’ve spent a lot of my past year working on this for people, just trying to explain it. It’s an uphill battle,” Drewyore-Beck says. “Not all of my coworkers agree with me. I didn’t go into this just for me, that was never my intention. It’s a very complex, emotional state to be in. I realized too how many people, especially, disproportionately women, were afraid to say or do anything about it. Some of these women were very, very close to me.”
She says that a lot of women who spoke to her about the situation ultimately decided to quit because “it was too much for them to take.”
Drewyore-Beck says she has become even more frustrated due to the multitude of positive stories about the bar and an old quote from one of the previous owners stating that Miller’s could not find staff, which she says is false.
She pointed specifically to a 2021 Detroit News article about Miller’s Bar going up for sale where Dennis Miller said: “We have plenty of customers, and our customers are great. We just don’t have help. We can’t get help. No matter what you pay, you’re not getting them in. We need everything: cooks, bartenders, waiters.”
Drewyore-Beck says that the “continuous narrative that nobody wants to work” amid a labor shortage is not true.
“First of all, these are very, very low-wage workers and to steal from very, very low-wage workers on top of paying them a very, very low wage and then to say that they don’t want to work, it’s a whole difficult ethical conundrum that I’m having a very, very hard time with,” she adds. “Every time I see it, I get very infuriated, because that’s not the reality of what’s happening for people that are actually in there working very, very hard, trying to get more shifts, trying to pay their bills.”
She emphasizes that she is not trying to take Miller’s Bar down, but wants people to be educated about the ins and outs of the service industry, how wage theft happens, and that it’s OK to speak up when something is off in the workplace.
“It doesn’t feel OK for me over the past year, it feels terrible, but I know I did the right thing because a lot of people got back the wages they deserved,” Drewyore-Beck says. “Even when people think something has a hometown small feel, if you don’t say something, bad things can happen. The policy doesn’t trump the law to me. Just because this is how we’ve always done something, doesn’t mean it’s the way it should be. You have to update your policies to protect your workers. If you’re really a great company and a great business, you would want to do the best for your staff that has been there for a day, or for 10 years, or for 30 years.”
Paris doesn’t know how long this issue has been happening at Miller’s, but says it has definitely worsened following the COVID-19 pandemic and could have been going on much longer. He says that Miller’s Bar’s attorney called him recently in hopes of speeding up the settlement process before the sale, which didn’t yet happen, but the current owner took over anyway two days later, to his surprise.
The new management doesn’t seem to be too worried, but we weren’t able to get in contact with Mallad. “The Miller’s famous hamburger history continues, and we are honored to be the chosen buyer of that legacy moving forward,” Christmas says.
Drewyore-Beck hopes that telling her story creates wider spread awareness and change.
“I’m satisfied with what I’ve done,” she says. “I hope it kind of ripples through the service industry because I’ve worked at other places and the same thing happens, small restaurants, small businesses, it happens, it happens a lot, and it’s sad.”
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