Former server at Pyramid Club alleges she was sexually harassed by a chef

A former banquet server at the exclusive Pyramid Club claims in a federal lawsuit that the then-chef sexually harassed her and had engaged in sexual relations with other servers in a storage closet and that management did nothing — contending that it needed someone to run the kitchen.

The Pyramid Club alone is named as the defendant in the suit filed on behalf of Munirah Lowery of Philadelphia. Representatives of the club had not returned calls Wednesday morning.

The former chef, Nicholas Cassidy, who last summer left the private club on the 52nd floor of the BNY Mellon Center, in a brief phone interview declined to comment about the allegations contained in the complaint filed last week by Christopher Macey of Bell & Bell.

Lowery was hired in March 2017 and terminated in March 2019, several weeks after the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission affirmed her right to sue. She had filed a complaint with the EEOC and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission in July 2018.

In the suit, Lowery claims that Cassidy, her supervisor, used the phrase, “Are you ready?” to some female banquet servers “to indicate that it was time to go to the storage closet and have sexual relations.”

Lowery claims that Cassidy had made “inappropriate comments” regarding her appearance. In April 2018, the suit says, he asked Lowery, “Are you ready?” When she said she did not understand the question, she says, Cassidy made the point clear. She rejected the proposition and then feared reprisal.

Shortly after, Lowery says Cassidy asked her for help with boxes in a back room. When her back was turned, she claims, the chef "pressed his body against hers, slid his hands from the outside of her hips to the outside of her thighs, and pushed his erect penis against [her] buttocks,” the complaint says. She says she quickly left the room. She says she “did not feel comfortable reporting” the incident to the then-general manager, Richard Winland, as it was known that Winland and Cassidy were "close friends.”

Winland, who now works in another role at Pyramid parent company ClubCorp, of Dallas, did not return a message for comment left with the current general manager.

Lowery says she reported the alleged incident to the night supervisor, Hassan Brown. He told service director Laura Maenak, who then reported it to Winland. Her suit says Winland and Cassidy went to a bar that evening to discuss it, and Cassidy denied the allegation. It was unclear Wednesday whether Brown was still with the company. Maenak left last fall.

Human resources had told Lowery that the complaint would be investigated, Lowery’s complaint says, adding that she also was told that Cassidy had admitted to sexual contact with other servers and would be terminated.

But Cassidy remained. When Lowery asked Maenak why Cassidy was still employed by the club, Lowery claims Maenak replied, “We need someone to run the kitchen.” In a phone conversation Wednesday, Maenak denied having said that.

This story has been updated.