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PHOENIX (KSAZ) - Samantha Tulley worked at the original Wineburger on Seventh Avenue near Indian School for three months.
On Saturday, she showed up to collect her check and the doors were locked.
"I had not time to prepare, not time to think, no time to do anything," she said. "Nobody knew. It was one day it happened."
Much to her and the other employees' surprise, the restaurant was closed. She was given a letter from the owners, which stated that the restaurant will be closing and employees would be paid in cash sometime soon for hours worked between April 23 and May 13.
Tulley says with no paycheck, she was unable to pay rent and get things for her kids. She wants answers and her final paycheck.
"It didn't happen out of the blue," she said. "They knew it was going to happen. Tuesday didn't come around and their bank account was empty. The knew something was going on."
Lynn Courter owns the restaurant with his wife, their daughters and son-in-law. Courter says after moving to a new location from a previous area, business slowly started to decline.
All of this happened as his wife battled cancer.
"The bills were piling up and we can out of money and we're retired," he said.
Courter says he feels terrible for his loyal employees and wishes he could have kept the doors open. The first people he says to get paid will be them.
"It's going to take time," he said. "We can't do it overnight. We don't have any money in our personal savings or our checking accounts."
Courter also says he is working with financial professionals to get the money situation figured out. He asks all of his employees, as he did in the letter he sent to them, to keep him up-to-date on their phone numbers to make sure they get paid.