Sidney M. Greathouse, senior vice president for legal services at The Cheesecake Factory, said in a statement that the allegations in a lawsuit filed on Thursday, June 19 against the Willow Grove restaurant are “entirely false” and that the company follows all federal employment verification laws, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported today.

“We take these matters seriously and intend to vigorously defend against these baseless accusations through the appropriate legal channels,” Greathouse said. “We are confident that the facts will clearly demonstrate the integrity of our practices.”

Five Mexican plaintiffs, each of whom are Pennsylvania residents, are claiming that the restaurant chain and related corporate entities hired undocumented workers to abuse them through forced labor “for its own financial benefit,” Bloomberg Law reported last week. The lawsuit accuses the Cheesecake Factory of violating federal human trafficking laws and labor protections.

The lawsuit says that a manager at the Cheesecake Factory at 2500 West Moreland Road (Upper Moreland Township) told the immigrants to pay between $100 to $180 for fraudulent Social Security and Permanent Resident cards between 2008 and 2013 as a condition for their employment.

The lawsuit also alleges that the Cheesecake Factory fired 18 undocumented employees, including the five who filed the lawsuit, after the government learned of the unauthorized workers in March 2022.

“To be clear, the trafficking venture built at The Cheesecake Factory, and in particular the conspiracy to manufacture fraudulent work documents, was not for the benefit of the undocumented persons hired at The Cheesecake Factory,” the complaint says. “Far from it.”

The full lawsuit can be found here.

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