A popular West Coast pizza chain shuttered five of its California locations shortly before the state enacted its new minimum wage law this month that raises fast-food workers’ pay from $16 an hour to $20.
Mod Pizza — which has 500 locations across the US and Canada and has been dubbed “the Chipotle of pizza” — abruptly closed up shop at its location in Clovis, near Fresno, two weeks ago, according to former employees.
“It just kind of seemed like the right timing, two weeks before all of the fast food locations in California got that increase that we closed,” one fired worker, who was among 15 that were let go, told Fox 26 TV on Tuesday.
Management never explicitly gave a reason for the closure, but workers suspect that the minimum wage law played a role.
“[We didn’t hear] from corporate directly, but I do have a feeling it had to do with the $20 an hour increase, seeing as they knew it was coming,” the former employee said.
The Post has sought comment from Mod Pizza, which was founded by the husband-and-wife team of Scott and Ally Svenson in Seattle in 2008.
The law, which went into effect on April 1, has been blamed for ballooning menu prices at major fast-food chains like Burger King, as The Post reported.
The ex-worker said that while he initially supported the idea of an increase in the minimum wage, it may have come at too steep of a cost.
“For the extra money, yeah,” he said. “I mean, nobody is going to turn down a raise, but at the end of the day, with repercussions like this, was it worth it?”
The former employee lamented the job loss, saying: “I love this company. It really sucks.”
“I put, you know, blood, sweat, and tears into this,” the worker said.
“I opened the Fresno location. They closed that location. I helped open this location, and now. It’s closed as well.”
Each of the 15 laid-off employees was given a $2,000 severance.
The locations of the other four Mod Pizza franchises in California that were recently shuttered were not available.
Mod Pizza, named after the acronym for “made on demand, offers customers the option of creating individual, customizable pizzas using organic dough.
Reports from social media indicate that the company has also shut down locations in New Jersey, Texas, and Wisconsin as part of 22 closures nationwide.
In Fitchburg, Wis., some Mod employees told the Wisconsin State Journal that they were abruptly let go and left without paychecks last month.
Fast food chains in California have bumped up menu prices in the past week to offset labor costs from the higher minimum wage.
At a Los Angeles-area Burger King, a Texas Double Whopper meal that cost $15.09 on March 29 surged to $16.89 on April 1, a whopping increase of $1.80 (nearly 12%) for the same meal.
A McDonald’s franchisee who owns more than a dozen locations in the San Francisco Bay Area said that he, too, had to jack up menu prices — though he drew the line at charging $20 for a Happy Meal.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
