The U.S. Department of Labor has recovered $732,976 in back wages for 31 workers at a Pompano Beach seafood buffet after finding the owner failed to pay minimum wage and overtime. The employer, Lucky King LLC, operates Miyako Japanese Buffet in Broward County. The department announced the recovery on September 3, 2026, saying most employees were paid flat monthly salaries of $1,000 to $3,000 even though they typically worked more than 40 hours a week.
How a monthly salary left 31 workers short
According to the Labor Department announcement, investigators from the Wage and Hour Division found that Lucky King LLC paid most of its restaurant staff a fixed monthly amount rather than tracking and paying for the hours they actually worked. Because employees regularly worked beyond 40 hours in a workweek, the flat salary did not cover the overtime premium federal law requires. Investigators also determined the employer failed to pay the minimum wage for all hours worked and failed to keep the records federal regulations require. The department said each of those practices violated the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Simple arithmetic shows how quickly a low monthly salary can fall under the legal floor. A $1,000 monthly salary works out to roughly $230 a week. Spread across a 40-hour week, that is about $5.77 an hour, below the $7.25 federal minimum wage before a single overtime hour is counted. For employees who worked longer weeks, the effective hourly rate falls further.
The $732,976 will be distributed among the 31 workers identified in the investigation. WLRN, the South Florida public broadcaster, reported the case on September 8, noting the recovery amounted to almost three-quarters of a million dollars for the Pompano Beach workforce…