Kenyan owner of US restaurant visited by President Ruto in court for 'stealing' employees' tips

Ruto who is on a trip to the United States, visited Onyona's Swahili Village in New Jersey and praised the Kenyan entrepreneur for flying the national flag abroad.

"Witnessing the success of thriving Kenyans abroad propels our resolve to intensify our foreign relations efforts aimed at broadening opportunities for many more, wrote Ruto on X, formerly Twitter.

Onyona is however battling a court case for allegedly stealing tips from his employees, many of whom are African immigrants, according to a report by Washingtonian.

Citing a lawsuit from the DC Attorney General’s Office in August, Swahili Village is accused of allegedly defrauding its servers, food runners, bussers, and bartenders, paying as little as Ksh.735 ($5) an hour (including tips) despite the eatery catering to an elite international clientele.

The restaurant is also said to have denied its staffers their legally required overtime and sick leave.

Together with his COO Emad Shoeb, Onyona is said to have violated the city’s tipped minimum wage law and other worker protections. The minimum wage law in Washington State is Ksh.2314 ($15) per hour.

The owners allegedly pocketed large quantities of tips while exclusively compensating some employees. Some workers allegedly were even underpaid by up to Ksh.735,250 ($5,000) and even hid their worker's payroll records to keep them away from knowing their salary deductions.

“Our investigation indicates that Swahili Village DC and its executives, Kevin Onyona and Emad Shoeb, persistently and systematically failed to pay hundreds of hard-working restaurant workers the wages, tips, and benefits they were legally entitled to receive, violating the basic wage, overtime, sick leave, and record-keeping rules that all District employers are required to follow,” DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb said in a statement as quoted. 

Swahili Village has over five branches in the US, starting with one in Northwest, District of Columbia, which opened in 2020 where Ruto visited.

Others are in Beltsville, Maryland, Newark in New Jersey, Tyson’s Corner in Virginia and Manhattan in New York.

Its Kenyan staples include goat stew, nyama choma, kuku choma, bhajia, tilapia in coconut sauce (samaki wa nazi), Tusker beer among others.