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The restaurant group behind numerous Philly hotspots has been selling alcohol without proper liquor licenses for months

Glu Hospitality, which operates Figo, Izakaya Fishtown, Chika, Sushi by Bou, Almost Home General, and numerous other restaurants, is also facing at least two lawsuits and wage theft allegations.

Glu Hospitality operates numerous restaurants, including Figo, shown here on North 2nd Street on Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Northern Liberties.
Glu Hospitality operates numerous restaurants, including Figo, shown here on North 2nd Street on Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Northern Liberties.Read moreSteven M. Falk / Staff Photographer

At Figo, the vaguely clubby Italian spot in Northern Liberties’ Piazza complex, diners love to post photos of the $60 espresso martini tower and the bottomless mimosa brunch package offered on Eagles game days. Patrons lap up Roku gin highballs at Izakaya Fishtown and its Sushi by Bou omakase room in the back, and they enjoy Negronis with brunch at the bright and airy Almost Home General in Old City, an offshoot of the Jersey Shore cafe.

These hot spots are some of the most popular in Glu Hospitality’s sprawling portfolio, which includes a Mexican restaurant called Añejo in Northern Liberties, several Bagel & Co. shops in Pennsylvania and Florida, and soon, a sports bar near Temple University called The Peabody. The four restaurants also appear to be, as of Feb. 2, serving drinks without proper liquor licenses: Izakaya and Sushi by Bou’s liquor license expired some 15 months ago, while Figo and Almost Home General are using the catering permits of a restaurant that shuttered more than two weeks ago.

The licensing issues aren’t the only potential cracks forming in the empire of Glu Hospitality, which has grown at breakneck speed since its founding in 2019. The restaurant group, owned by business partners Derek Gibbons and Tim Lu, is also facing two lawsuits in Common Pleas Court, as well as employee allegations of wage theft and missing tax documents.

The Philadelphia Department of Revenue ordered the Glu-operated 1225 Raw in Center City — which briefly hosted another Sushi by Bou location — to close on Jan. 15 over unpaid taxes. The building’s landlord filed a lawsuit in January in Municipal Court against 1225 Raw founder Tony Rim, whose name is on the lease, over unpaid rent.

Rim, who contracted with Glu to manage the establishment, declined to comment. The owners of Sushi by Bou and Almost Home General, which contract Glu to run those restaurants, did not reply to requests for comment. (Glu does not operate the Almost Home General location in East Kensington.)

The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board oversees the sale of alcohol in the state’s bars and restaurants and is the gatekeeper of liquor licenses. A liquor license is required for bars and restaurants to legally sell alcohol. In most cases, they must also buy their wine and spirits from the state, which is only possible with a valid liquor license. (The PLCB also regulates the sale of beer and other malt beverages, but those are handled through distributors.) The licenses must be renewed annually, a process that requires the business’ taxes to be fully paid up with the Pennsylvania Departments of Revenue and Labor & Industry.

Establishments suspected of skirting liquor laws are investigated by the state police’s Bureau of Liquor Enforcement. A raid can result in a bar being shut down, with the alcohol on premises confiscated and managers cited for selling alcohol without a license. Fines vary, and can exceed $1,000 per violation. After this article was published online on Feb. 4, a state police spokesperson acknowledged that an investigation was underway and that police had visited 1832 Frankford Ave., which hosts Izakaya Fishtown and Sushi by Bou, in the last week.

Philadelphia bars are also responsible for collecting a 10% tax on each alcoholic beverage served. A city spokesperson said they could not discuss the tax status of specific taxpayers due to state confidentiality laws.

Izakaya Fishtown and Sushi by Bou, on Frankford Avenue near Berks Street, share a liquor license that expired in October 2023, according to the PLCB. Their taxes have not been settled with the state since April 2023, so neither restaurant currently has permission to serve drinks. The Inquirer observed drinks being served at Izakaya as recently as Feb. 1. Operating a bar without a valid liquor license — especially for such an extended period — is rare, industry observers told The Inquirer.

Figo and the Almost Home General location in Old City have been selling alcohol using off-premises catering permits rather than more costly, harder-to-obtain restaurant liquor licenses. Both have relied on catering permits since they opened — Figo in October 2021, Almost Home nearly a year ago — that are affiliated with the license at the recently shuttered 1225 Raw.

An off-premises catering permit, which allows bar and restaurant owners to arrange off-site weddings and other special functions, costs $500 a year, while a liquor license in Philadelphia requires a lengthy application process and costs at least $165,000. The state expanded the use of catering permits during the pandemic to help financially strapped bars and restaurants. In 2021, Gov. Tom Wolf signed a law allowing liquor licensees to cater an unlimited number of events (previously limited to 52 a year) for a longer window (six hours a day vs. the previous five). In 2023, Gov. Josh Shapiro signed a law making the change permanent.

A PLCB spokesperson said catering permits have “very specific rules and limitations,” citing a statute that describes them as designed “for the accommodation of a person or an identifiable group of people, not the general public, who made arrangements for the function at least 30 days in advance.”

Additionally, the spokesperson said, if a business is closed for more than 15 days, its liquor license must be placed into “safekeeping” status, at which point the catering permit would be invalid.

Glu attorney William B. Morrin said issues within the state’s Revenue Department — including understaffing in the office, a change in filing procedures that began in November 2022, and new rules for tax reporting — have “created confusion and delay” for his clients.

Morrin said he believed that the use of catering permits at Figo and Almost Home was “perfectly legal,” and that, to his knowledge, “none of my clients are selling liquor if their license has not been renewed.”

Glu posted an orange license-transfer sign in Figo’s window in September 2023, indicating that it wanted to reactivate an expired license from a now-closed Glu restaurant in the Piazza. Glu had a hearing about reactivating the license in December before an administrative law judge, whose recommendations will be heard by the PLCB, the spokesperson for the board said. Under the rules, however, an off-premises catering permit may not be used at a restaurant while it is applying for a license.

Chika, the subterranean ramen bar that Glu runs at 1526 Sansom St., had been serving alcohol after its license expired on Oct. 31. On Jan. 30, the day that The Inquirer asked for information about its liquor license, Chika posted a note on the door that it would stop serving alcohol until it could be renewed.

Two lawsuits and a petition

Glu’s liquor license snafus come to light amidst mounting legal troubles and allegations of financial mismanagement from employees.

In one lawsuit, filed in September 2023, Glu investors Kevin Webster and Pasquale Mascaro Jr. allege that they had been shut out of the business and were denied access to its accounting. Morrin denied the allegations and added that Glu had filed counterclaims against Webster and Mascaro.

In another suit, filed December, a real estate developer alleged that Glu had walked away from the lease on a building at 1210 Chestnut St. that the hospitality group had planned to turn into a restaurant. Morrin said the issues were being negotiated and were expected to be resolved.

Outside of court, a petition published in October and signed by “the workers of Glu Hospitality” alleges wage theft across the restaurant group’s establishments.

Posted by Nia Byrd — who currently bartends at Chika after spending nearly two years at 1225 Raw — the petition asks Glu to “immediately pay all back wages owed to workers,” to “stop any manipulation of time records or tips,” to provide workers with any missing W-2s, and to “address the frequent occurrences of bounced checks,” among other issues. It received just shy of its goal of 3,000 signatures as of Monday.

Byrd, 26, said she was inspired to create the petition after returning from vacation on Aug. 1 to find 1225 Raw inexplicably closed and herself unemployed. When she went to cash her final two paychecks at a Wells Fargo branch that same day, they bounced, according to a text exchange between Byrd and Lu reviewed by The Inquirer.

“I didn’t like having to be shuffled around and having to start over and being left in the dark,” Byrd said.

Lu and Gibbons told The Inquirer that they were aware of the petition. They chalked up the wage-theft allegations to difficulties with payroll software and employees misunderstanding the restaurant group’s pooled tipping policy. Glu has brought in a third party to conduct a compensation audit, Gibbons said.

“It became — I’ll be honest — almost like a toxic relationship with [employees] looking for these different things,” Lu said in an interview Jan. 30. He contended that the company has historically addressed employees’ concerns. “There’s things we could have done sooner but no one [has] ever said, ‘Oh, I’m owed this money’ or ‘something’s happened here’ [that] we did not repair.”

Byrd said she and other employees were unaware of any audit being conducted by the company. “We’ve had to fight for clarity,” she said.

Are you a current or former Glu Hospitality employee, contractor, vendor, or investor? We’d like to hear about your experience. Please fill out this Google form, and a reporter may reach out.

This story was updated to reflect that after it was initially published, the state police acknowledged it had opened an investigation and visited at least one Glu Hospitality establishment.