After foreclosure, two former Kinship Brewing workers say they still haven't been paid

Jenna Kidman was putting on her Halloween costume for her shift at Kinship Brewing when she got a message on the company's scheduling system from owner Zach Dobeck telling his employees to not come in.

A bank had just foreclosed on the Waukee brewery a day earlier, and Dobeck's message told employees their pay would be delayed. The brewery, at 255 N.W. Sunrise Drive, and the limited liability company that owns the property, Sunrise Drive Acquisitions, owe Lincoln Savings Bank almost $6 million, according to the foreclosure action.

Now, more than a month later, Kidman said she is still waiting to receive her last paycheck for work she completed as a shift lead there. In his Oct. 27 message, Dobeck told his employees they could likely return the next week, but she found a new job instead.

Kidman, 21, a student at Grand View University, has to pay for tuition, rent and her car.

"I was pretty nervous. I filed for unemployment, I filed a wage claim, but those processes take three weeks and rent is due in a week," she said in an interview Monday. "We're closing in on another month of rent coming up, so I've been pretty panicked on how I'm gonna pay all of my bills."

Kidman said she filed a complaint with the Iowa Division of Labor and has an investigator looking into her claim.

Megan Murphy, former sous chef at Barbarian, the high-end restaurant that had operated on the premises since January, said she got an email Monday from the Division of Labor investigator working her case that said he's spoken with Dobeck, who is "working with me on getting some or all the payments."

A spokesperson for the agency did not return multiple messages seeking comment on how many Kinship employees who are missing pay have filed complaints.

More: Waukee's Kinship Brewing had ambitious plans, but less than 3 years later faces foreclosure

Lincoln Savings Bank filed the foreclosure Oct. 26, saying that Sunrise defaulted on loans of $3.5 million and $2.4 million and that Kinship has failed to keep up payments on an operating loan with a $44,898 balance. The combined debt adds up to more than $5.9 million, with interest continuing to accrue, the foreclosure says.

Despite the foreclosure, Kinship remains open, with somewhat attenuated hours, producing and serving beer. While Barbarian has closed, a Facebook post Nov. 16 says two food trucks, Big Red Food Truck and the Brick & Ember Pizza Co., are "taking over" the kitchen. No other posts have been made since.

In a statement to the Register on Thursday, Dobeck said Kinship has been a vision in the works for five years. He chose Waukee as a great place to grow after the first wave of the pandemic.

"Like any new business owner, we deal with the ebbs and flows of business and navigate challenges as best as possible. Our aspirations from the beginning were to grow with a community and to provide beer to the market," he said. "It’s a delicate balance but an important one. Overall, I feel we’ve done good on both aspects and will continue to focus on a path forward."

He did not respond to questions about how many employees still need to be paid or when they can expect compensation.

Business had been slow for some time, worker says

Kidman originally joined the team as a server and host in August of 2022 after hearing that the brewery brought in a lot of tips. But she remembers the winter was a very slow time for the business and was peppered with paycheck delays — though checks eventually were paid.

"Our checks would come every other Friday through the UPS, and there were a few times where it was delayed and they maybe came the following week," Kidman said. "I never had an issue with my check bouncing, but I know that another employee did."

Business also had been very slow as of late, she said, and on a recent Tuesday, she saw only five tables during her shift. She said she'd get questions from customers asking if it always was that empty.

At the end of her time there, Kidman was a shift lead so part of her responsibility was to count tips, cash sales and credit sales at the end of the night.

"These are really small numbers," she said of the counts.

More: Waukee's Kinship Brewing had ambitious plans, but less than 3 years later faces foreclosure

Seeing the low numbers, Kidman recalls having a conversation with Dobeck about his absence from the taproom and the need to host more events and marketing.

"I knew that last winter was kind of rough financially," she said. "I didn't realize that they weren't caught up on payments to the mortgage or for the mortgage to the bank, but he was really starting to plan a lot of events in the last two months."

Kidman said she doesn't know why business was slow, but she said Dobeck was not involved in the day-to-day operations, focusing instead on beer distribution. She said the general manager, not Dobeck, worked to draw people to the brewery.

"He doesn't know how to work the point of sales system, doesn't know how to make the cocktails," Kidman said of Dobeck. "When he did come in to work he was kind of helpless. He didn't really know what to do."

Communication from Dobeck has stopped, employee says

Murphy, the sous chef, had worked at Kinship for 2½ years.

She was getting things ready to open Oct. 26 when Dobeck came in "and just said that everything was done, there'd be no hours left for people until he figured things out."

Murphy remembered him using a lot of buzzwords about getting things back together and talking to investors. He then told her to clock out and put away whatever food she could.

The next day, Dobeck sent the message to employees that left Kidman and others in the lurch. The message, which he sent to employees via the brewery's scheduling system and was obtained by the Register said, "Your delay in pay is not because I am purposefully withholding, it is because the resources need to be replenished."

The message said that a cash "infusion that we were expecting did not come as planned."

A second message sent on Nov. 3 claimed that employees would begin being paid in batches starting with tips the following week.

A week after the message was sent out, Kidman said she reached out to Dobeck for an update on their paychecks. She didn't hear from him for another week, she said.

"He promised us he would be keeping us informed and updated through the app, which we only heard from him a couple of times," she said.

Since then, the employee app Dobeck used for communication has been deactivated. Kidman said she returned to the brewery this past weekend and saw that it was closed for Thanksgiving.

"I think everyone really tried to be sympathetic and sorry of his situation in the beginning, but I mean now he just won't communicate with anyone," Kidman said.

As Waukee's first and so far only craft brewery, Kinship was the talk of the town when it announced plans in 2020 to open in the fast-growing city. The lot it occupies is near the intersection of Northwest 10th Street and Hickman Road, and the brewery sits just off the popular Raccoon River recreational trail, a short distance from the trail's southeast terminus, and has a paved connection and bike parking.

Kinship opened on Jan. 1, 2021, and drew capacity crowds. It donated over $50,000 to local charities in its first year, and Dobeck said it served around 1,200 barrels of beer ― double his expectations. It specializes in lagers and was soon canning its beers for sale at retail outlets around the Des Moines metro. Its draft beers often have been on tap at bars around the region serving craft beer.

Noelle Alviz-Gransee is a breaking news reporter at the Des Moines Register. Follow her on Twitter @NoelleHannika or email her at NAlvizGransee@registermedia.com.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Former Kinship Brewing employees say they need pay, more communication