Controversy has erupted over the closure of celebrity chef Maneet Chauhan’s Nashville restaurant, Chaatable, announced on Friday, August 26. In interviews with WWLTV and Eater, former workers allege the closure was a response to recent demands and organizing, while management tells Eater it had previously communicated the restaurant’s impending closure to employees.
It seems much of the conflict surrounds timing and communication: Workers from the four-year-old Sylvan Heights restaurant say that six months ago they discovered, on their own, that the Chaatable space was up for lease. In a statement sent to Eater on behalf of Morph Hospitality and Chauhan on Monday, the Chaatable management team maintains it shared that information with staff directly, writing, “Management and ownership personally talked to team members multiple times about the possibility of a closure and the hope of a relocation.” Former Chaatable front-of-house employee Paul Sponsler disputes this, telling Eater there was no official communication whatsoever, just one private conversation between Chauhan and a staff member.
Front-of-house workers began discussing plans to declare their intent to unionize during this time, Sponsler says, eventually securing union cards about a month ago. On Friday, August 19, Chaatable workers sent an email with a request to meet “to talk about the state of our restaurant as well as our jobs before the official closing date of Chaatable, preferably within the next week,”...
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