NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — Stripers seafood restaurant at Waterside in Norfolk abruptly closed its doors this week and laid off its staff without warning or an explanation, workers say.
Stripers’ website still shows no changes, but its Facebook page says it’s now “permanently closed.”
Though the closure doesn’t appear to be permanent. 10 On Your Side learned Stripers, which opened at Waterside in 2017, plans to reopen next month, seemingly with a brand new staff.
Two workers who spoke to 10 On Your Side on Wednesday said they were blindsided by the move.
Lauren, a lead server, said the staff was told Sunday night that the restaurant would be closing effective immediately and that they were all being laid off. It came about 30 minutes after ownership met with managers, Lauren said.
“We were all left jobless with no warning,” Lauren said. “No time to prepare. We weren’t asked to sign any termination paperwork, nothing of the sort. We were just told not to return on Wednesday because they were going to be closing, which from my understanding, that meant permanently.”
However, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Lauren says when someone who’d been on staff called and tried to made a reservation, they learned from someone on the other line that Stripers was closed for “maintenance” and that they planned to reopen in October.
“I’m guessing they just wanted to get rid of the whole staff. I’m not really sure why they would do that, but they didn’t give us like a day warning or anything,” said Pamela Ortiz, who worked as a host at Stripers for several months. She was in the hospital at the time and learned she was let go through text message.
Both workers said it’s weird because nothing really seemed out of sorts in the months ahead of the announcement, and that the staff of 35-40 felt like a big family. Some had worked at Stripers for years.
Lauren believes that the management team was the best she’s had in the business.
“We were all literally like family there, which is why it’s so upsetting too,” Ortiz added. “We have a bunch of team members that need this job, or needed the job.”
Lauren says the blame lies with ownership.
“I’m extremely disappointed with the owner’s business practices and highly encourage everybody to know what happened. Because it could happen to them if they choose to be employed by them.”
WAVY reached out to Stripers at Waterside and its other location in Manteo for comment, but did not immediately hear back from ownership.
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