Soft-serve joint in California closes down due to new state law mandating $20 hourly salary for fast food workers

04/08/2024 / By Ramon Tomey

A Foster’s Freeze location in Lemoore, California has closed down for good as a result of the Golden State’s new law mandating an hourly rate of $20 for fast food workers.

According to KFSN 30, the milkshake joint’s location in Lemoore was forced to stop operations permanently on April 1. The move was no April Fool’s Day joke as the closure coincided with the day Assembly Bill (AB) 1228 took effect. The law, which orders fast food restaurants to increase the hourly wages of their workers to $20, was signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom last September.

“Some of the employees thought it was an April Fool’s Day joke,” the ABC affiliate remarked. However, it eventually became clear that this was not the case at all. They found the Foster’s Freeze location permanently closed as they were going to report to work on April 1.

Monica Navarro, assistant general manager for Foster’s Freeze in Lemoore, spoke to KFSN 30 about the sudden closure. According to her, it was prompted by the wage increase mandated by AB 1228 The owner reportedly told Navarro that he could not afford the new salaries under the law.

“The owner had actually talked to us like he was preparing to pay us $20 an hour. Like, it wasn’t a possibility of us closing,” said the assistant general manager. “He said, ‘Alright, on the schedules, we’re going to run smaller crews. We’re going to do smaller shifts, but we’ll be able to make it work. We’re going to raise some prices, but we’re good.”

Despite these assurances, Foster’s Freeze employees found themselves out of a job because of the snap decision to permanently close. KFSN 30 called the owner to ask him about the closure, but he has not responded as of press time.

Selling bread would have exempted Foster’s Freeze from the new law’s effects

Citing the Wall Street Journal, Breitbart News reported in March that many California restaurants had already begun to lay off workers ahead of the wage hike.

“Though economists have debated whether raising the minimum wage hurts or helps workers, one area where the negative effects are often most keenly felt is in the restaurant industry, where margins are typically small. California’s unemployment rate is officially the nation’s highest, at 5.3 percent as of February.”

But incidentally, the new law provides an exemption for “chains that bake bread and sell it as a standalone item.” Establishments that fall under this category include Paris Baguette, Great Harvest Bread Co. and Panera Bread. This exemption was the work of Greg Flynn of the Flynn Restaurant Group (FRG) – which has two dozen Panera Bread locations in California. (Related: DONOR DOUGH: Panera Bread exempted from California’s minimum wage law after major franchise owner DONATES to Gavin Newsom.)

A Feb. 28 report by Bloomberg News disclosed that this exemption for Panera Bread was included in AB 1228 due to Flynn’s machinations. The FRG owner has close ties with Newsom, dating back to high school. Aside from this, Flynn is a major donor to the Democratic governor’s campaign – having contributed “$100,000 to fight off a conservative-led recall effort and $64,800 to support the governor’s reelection in 2022.”

Established in 1946, Foster’s Freeze opened its first branch in Inglewood, California. According to its website, founder George Foster “introduced the soft serve cone and a line of soft serve desserts” when the joined first opened. It later expanded its menu by adding “made-to-order hamburgers, fries and other food items.”

Had Foster’s Freeze rebranded its concept to sell bread instead of soft-serve and milkshakes, the closure of the Lemoore location would not have happened. Unfortunately, the joint’s demise puts it on the growing list of casualties as a result of insane policies put forward by Newsom.

Head over to CaliforniaCollapse.news for similar stories.

Watch Glenn Beck explains how California’s new $20 hourly wage law will worsen inflation in the clip below.

This video is from the High Hopes channel on Brighteon.com.