A Soho French Restaurant Is Sued for Alleged Race Discrimination

"The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York on December 3, comes on the heels of the restaurant's breakup with former managing partner Stephen Starr of Starr Restaurants, which ran the place as its managing partner until November 2025, when it changed management companies to Restaurant Associates, the group behind dining in Lincoln Center and Condé Nast. (Restaurant Associates is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit). The lawsuit comes ahead of the restaurant's plans to open two restaurants inside Sotheby's headquarters in the Breuer building on the Upper East Side: the fine-dining French restaurant Marcel and the French bakery La Mercerie Patisserie."

"Plaintiffs Sezgin Mehmed, who is Turkish, and Latinx employees Gabriel Pucha and Keyra Arias, were servers who say they were laid off in November 2025, when the restaurant changed management companies from Starr to Restaurant Associates. At the time of this transition, employees were told they would be fired from Starr but would be rehired as a matter of course by Restaurant Associates, according to the lawsuit. The complaint alleges, however, that these purported layoffs were actually a ruse to "clean house of minority employees" by Roman & Williams' owners Standefer and Alesch. The plaintiffs allege that "[o]f the roughly 20 servers employed before the transition, most were invited back to work under Restaurant Associates, Standefer, and Alesch. But almost all minority servers - including the three Plaintiffs - were excluded from rehire. Plaintiff Arias was told she did not fit the restaurant's 'vision'."

Former servers at La Mercerie filed a class-action lawsuit in the Southern District of New York alleging racially discriminatory rehiring practices during a November 2025 management change. Plaintiffs Sezgin Mehmed, Gabriel Pucha, and Keyra Arias say they were laid off by departing managing partner Starr Restaurants and not rehired by Restaurant Associates despite assurances. The complaint names owners Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch and Restaurant Associates as defendants and alleges the layoffs were a ruse to "clean house of minority employees." Plaintiffs say most minority servers were excluded from rehire and Arias was told she did not fit the restaurant's 'vision'.

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