Four cooks employed by a major third-party restaurant operator at Disney’s EPCOT theme park have accused their employer, the Patina Group, of underpaying them.
They’ve threatened to file a lawsuit over the issue, with the assistance of a labor attorney running for Florida Attorney General, if the Patina Group doesn’t pay them what they say they’re owed by July 2.
“We’re taking action today because it isn’t right to work without pay,” said Jennifer Quinones-Estrada, a prep cook at EPCOT’s Tutto Italia, speaking at a press conference last Wednesday.
She’s one of four cooks at Tutto Italia, a restaurant operated by the Patina Group, who allege they were forced to perform off-the-clock, pre-shift prep work for years without being paid.
She, personally, works five eight-hour shifts a week, but said that, since October 2020, she’s been expected to show up to shifts a half-hour early to prep, without receiving compensation.
“I should have been getting paid for every hour I did for the last five and a half years. I should have been getting paid overtime when that extra work put me over 40 hours a week,” Quinones-Estrada stated.
“Patina,” she added pointedly, “you broke the law. Make it right.”
Quinones-Estrada was joined Wednesday by members of her union, Unite Here Local 737, in addition to State Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, and U.S. Congressman Maxwell Frost, D-FL.
“No matter what your political viewpoint is, we can all agree that when you do the work, you should get paid, period,” said Eskamani, a progressive Democrat and daughter of a former part-time Disney World employee.
Frost, a fellow progressive who’s running unopposed for his Congressional seat this fall, described wage theft as “the largest crime we have in this country,” coupled with other forms of white-collar crime.
“We need to enshrine more worker protections in the law, so that way companies can’t get away with this,” Frost added, lifting up the pro-union Protecting the Right to Organize Act and the Congressional Progressive Caucus’s new affordability agenda.
“What’s going on here, this isn’t unique,” he said. “This is happening across the entire country, day in and day out, and so we need to do more in the United States Congress to ensure that we’re protecting workers.”
Quinones-Estrada and three of her coworkers at Tutto Italia have retained Sugarman, Susskind, & Braswell P.A. as their legal counsel through their union. Specifically serving as their counsel is Jose Javier Rodriguez, a labor attorney who is also running for Florida State Attorney General this fall as a Democrat. He has committed to strengthening mechanisms in Florida to fight wage theft, if elected.
“If Patina does not pay these four workers what they’re owed, they’re prepared to file a lawsuit under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, represented by friend of labor and workers attorney Jose Javier Rodriguez,” said Ella Wood, who serves as political and research director of Unite Here Local 737. “We will not stop until these workers get what they deserve.”
“We will not stop until these workers get what they deserve.”
Ella Wood, political and research director for Unite Here Local 737
Altogether, the workers are collectively seeking roughly $134,000 — based on their regular pay rates and hours allegedly worked without pay — in addition to $7,700 for attorney’s fees.
Quinones’ calculated unpaid wages, specifically — including unpaid wages due at an overtime rate — total $26,851 from shifts beginning Oct. 1, 2020.
“As hourly workers, Employees rely on their wages for sustenance, and the law takes seriously an employer’s deprivation of their wages,” the letter from Sugarman, Susskind, & Braswell P.A. to Patina Group reads, dated June 17.
Florida’s wage, hour and overtime laws are spelled out in the Fair Labor Standards Act, a federal law, as well as the Florida Minimum Wage Act modeled after the FLSA.
The Economic Policy Institute has highlighted Florida as one of the top states in the country for minimum wage violations — a problem that disproportionately affects immigrants, women, service workers and people of color. Wage theft, collectively, costs U.S. workers an estimated $15 billion each year.
“Headlines after headlines speak to Orlando as being the top tourism destination in the world. Our revenue generated from the tourism development tax continues to increase, and yet these are the everyday people that make those dreams a reality, that generate that revenue for our community — and they are not even getting a piece of that revenue,” said Eskamani.
The Patina Group, a subsidiary of the multinational company Delaware North, did not respond to a request for comment from Orlando Weekly on the workers’ June 17 letter, or on the wage theft allegations.
In Central Florida, the Patina Group currently operates Tutto Italia, Via Napoli, Space 220 and Tutto Gusto at Disney’s EPCOT. The group also runs five restaurants at Disney Springs — Morimoto Asia, Enzo’s Hideaway, Maria & Enzo’s, Pizza Ponte and The Edison — where workers are in an ongoing process to organize a union with Unite Here Local 737.
Several weeks ago, Patina Group workers at Disney’s EPCOT who are already unionized with Local 737 urged Disney against entering into any new business with the Patina Group, citing alleged violations of federal labor law.
A regional director for the National Labor Relations Board, a federal agency that enforces private sector workers’ rights to organize a union, last month issued his own complaint against the Patina Group, alleging that Julie Ruiz, a former cashier at Pizza Ponte, was unlawfully fired from her job in 2024 in retaliation for her union organizing activity.
NLRB regional director David Cohen on May 27, 2026, ordered Patina to offer Ruiz reinstatement to her job and to give her back pay. The Patina Group responded to the complaint on June 10, denying the allegations. A trial date for Ruiz’s case is scheduled for Sept. 15, 2026.
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