CINCINNATI (WXIX/Gray News) – Frisch’s Big Boy head baker for four decades and other kitchen commissary workers in Ohio are suddenly out of jobs.
Bruce Woods, the man behind baking Frisch’s savory pumpkin pies, said the team knew layoffs were coming after several restaurant locations closed but management kept the workers’ last day a secret until this week.
Woods says they were told Thursday to report to a meeting at 6 a.m. Friday and that’s when they were abruptly notified they were out of work.
“We were the dedicated people. We were the backbone of the company. That’s where it all started, at the commissary kitchen. We knew we were going down with the ship, but we didn’t know it would go down like this,” Woods said.
Frisch’s Kitchen was established in 1948 to supply local, fresh products to restaurants, according to its website.
Beyond pies and other desserts, Frisch’s said the commissary kitchen is where its hamburger patties are produced along with batches of soup, chili and salad dressings.
Woods said he would have received his full pension but management gave each of the 26 employees, including him, a five-page contract they had to sign and return that day to receive their “severance pay.”
“If you don’t sign it, you don’t get the check. We had no choice. They said if you don’t sign it you don’t get it,” he said. “They told us the company is shutting down. Any disability claims we have will be terminated by the end of the month, we get nothing.”
He said he raised his hand at Friday’s meeting and asked management why he wouldn’t be paid for the rest of his vacation time and they responded “That’s all we got, the company’s broke.”
Woods added, “It hurts me to have them do this like this. Here it is Christmas and I have no job. I was the head baker.”
According to Woods, the legal agreement ordered workers not to talk to the media but he said he wanted to let the community know they are no longer there.
“I baked 288 pumpkin pies from scratch in each oven. I put 140 fudge cakes in each oven. From the time that I started back in 1984, my boss and I figured I had baked about a million and a half pies,” he said.
Woods said he plans to start looking immediately for another job. It’s not in his DNA to sit at home.
“I am not ready to draw my social security. I’ve got to work. I just turned 66. My birthday was two days ago,” he said. “My dad raised us to be workers.”
Court records show Frisch’s iconic Mainliner restaurant on Wooster Pike Fairfax has also been ordered to vacate.
According to the company’s website, Frisch’s Mainliner location has been a fixture in Cincinnati since it opened in 1939.
Frisch’s representatives have not immediately responded to a request for comment regarding the situation.
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