Il Fornaio will pay $3 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over allegations that female workers faced severe sexual harassment and retaliation across the restaurant chain. The EEOC announced the settlement this month, ending a case that accused the company of allowing misconduct to spread through multiple locations in California and Nevada.
The federal agency said the 2022 lawsuit covered at least 100 female employees, many of them teenagers, and alleged a hostile work environment that included forceful groping in restaurant bathrooms, repeated grabbing of private parts, requests for sexual favors and explicit references to sexual activities. A teenage worker at the Palo Alto location told managers she had been raped by an older male employee, and an amended complaint filed in 2024 said she was told nothing could be done because the rape happened outside work.
The settlement lands today because it closes a case that has been building since 2022 and deepened in 2024. Il Fornaio is headquartered in Corte Madera and operates 15 locations across California and Nevada, making the allegations more than a single-site dispute. The EEOC said supervisors and employees across several locations took part in the harassment, while the complaint said male workers at all levels helped create and maintain the hostile environment, from the vice president of operations to managers, bartenders, line cooks, food runners and bussers.
That broad account runs into the company’s public denial in court documents. Representatives for Il Fornaio rejected the allegations, and Hope Case said the settlement is not an admission of liability or wrongdoing. Case also said the move was meant to avoid the burden, expense and uncertainty of continued litigation, while adding that the company had increased its efforts to prevent and eliminate harassment and discrimination in the workplace. The case also said numerous women complained to managers and were often ignored, and that by July 2020 the company had eliminated its Human Resources Department, leaving employees with no effective way to report harassment.
What the settlement will require beyond the payment is not spelled out in the available record, but the stakes are plain: the EEOC said hundreds of women were affected, many were compelled to resign, and the conduct was open and notorious. For Il Fornaio, the payout ends the lawsuit for now. It does not resolve the central question raised by the case — how a chain with 15 restaurants in two states let complaints go unanswered for so long.
