Famous 4th St. Deli manager sues after being fired just six days into the job
Barry Steinman says he had been on the job for six days when he was let go. The owner told him that the relationship was "doomed from the beginning," the lawsuit alleges.
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/pmn/6UJSYJLBMJBFPBP5CAGNKS2YC4.jpg)
When Barry Steinman accepted the job of general manager of Famous 4th Street Delicatessen in December, he said he put his catering company on the back burner.
But in January, six days after he started at the Queen Village landmark shortly after its sale to Connecticut-based Locals 8, he was fired from the $120,000-a-year post.
Steinman said many of his catering customers are gone and have not returned, so he has taken his beef to Common Pleas Court.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday, Steinman says Locals 8 founder Al Gamble called him into his office and terminated his employment. “During this meeting, Mr. Gamble acknowledged that [Steinman] was not terminated for cause and had not engaged in any workplace misconduct,” the suit says. “Mr. Gamble simply told [Steinman]: ‘I think you were doomed from the beginning.’”
The lawsuit, filed by Peter Winebrake and Michelle Tolodziecki of Winebrake & Santillo in Dresher, suggests that Locals 8 engaged in negligent misrepresentation by inducing Steinman to come to work at Famous with the knowledge that his job was “doomed.”
Steinman’s employment agreement, attached to the lawsuit, stipulates that “employment is probationary in nature for the first ninety (90) days after your start date. During this probationary period, you may be separated from employment as of the date of the letter for any reason at the company’s sole discretion.”
“I’m not a lawyer, I’m a cook,” Steinman said Thursday in a phone interview. “My lawyer says that there are laws and statutes that you can’t just have a guy shut his business down and tell people he’s not taking orders anymore and then fire them within six days for absolutely no reason.”
Steinman said negotiations about a severance had broken down.
Reached Thursday, Gamble did not offer comment, saying he had not seen the suit.
Gamble, whose Locals 8 Hospitality Group’s portfolio includes a variety of concepts and a catering company, bought the nearly century-old business from Russ Cowan, who took over in 2005 from deli scion David Auspitz. Cowan retains ownership of the building, at Fourth and Bainbridge Streets, and now owns Radin’s Delicatessen in Cherry Hill.