It is known for its rude waiters and terrible service. And now employees at Karen's Diner say it is also an unsafe workplace.
Several employees have told the ABC they were forced to sign a waiver preventing them from pursuing injury claims against the eatery, which has become a social media sensation.
The ABC understands six workers from Karen's Diner in Melbourne have taken formal action.
The restaurant is built on the premise of a "Karen", a popular term for a white privileged woman, and has gone viral online since opening in 2021, with 15 restaurants worldwide.
Viral Ventures, which owns Karen's Diner, says the restaurant is an innovative and "absurdly fun experience" where customers are told to "give it in return" while served by rude staff.
Told to leave customers alone
Former worker Kaliya Arumugam thought it would be "a really fun job" which would allow her to combine her acting skills with her hospitality experience.
But Ms Arumugam alleges that a lack of safety procedures left her exposed to assaults and racism from customers.
"These incidents have ranged from my personal image, like insults about my physical appearance, body shaming, racial slurs and sexual harassment and physical assault," she said.
Ms Arumugam, who worked at Karen's Diner for six months, said on one occasion, she had her "skin rubbed" by customers.
"I had a group of young men physically threaten me, and once they left, they waited outside the front of the venue for me for about an hour or so," she said.
"There were incidents where we had to call the police and get people removed ... and they just were never really taken seriously by management."
Ms Arumugam said she approached management about her concerns, but instead of managers stepping in, she was told to "leave the customer alone".
"[Getting] a bad review was constantly a huge concern from them ... the public appearance and viralness of the concept was always a top priority," she said.
Right to pursue injury claims signed away
Ms Arumugam said an employee handbook was issued to staff which "basically said that we would waive any rights to pursue injury claims, even in the case of negligence.
"The manager of this venue at the time told us that we had a deadline to sign it and it was non-negotiable.
"Some staff members that raised concerns with managers and then had their shifts cut and then subsequently were fired."
Part of the handbook included a media release section, meaning staff members didn't have to provide consent to be filmed or photographed while working.
With videos frequently uploaded to TikTok and Reddit, Ms Arumugam said she started receiving unsolicited and threatening messages to her personal social media accounts.
"I was getting harassed and heckled and bothered in my personal life and people would think they could treat me like in my daily life how they would treat me at Karen's Diner," Ms Arumugam said.
Plans to manage customers pulled
Molly Harris, who prefers non-gendered pronouns, was hired 10 minutes into their trial after they responded to a Facebook post looking for workers who were comfortable being rude to customers.
"The night of my second shift, I had a gentleman reach up my dress," they said.
"When I told the manager, the manager didn't do anything about it, but another table tipped me $20 as an apology.
"That kind of thing happened regularly."
Plans to mitigate inappropriate behaviours were put in place with a red-and-yellow-card system, but Molly said it was quickly pulled.
"If a customer did something [inappropriate], we would then bring them a copy of the house rules, explain which one they broke, and state if they continued, they would be red-carded and removed from the venue after paying their bill," they said.
"They very quickly realised they were losing a lot of revenue because a lot of the customers were not following the house rules."
Molly said instead, staff needed to see a manager who would card unruly customers.
"Managers weren't really doing anything so that kind of defeats the whole purpose of that procedure."
'Unsafe workplace'
Young Workers Centre director Felicity Sowerbutts says Karen's Diner is "inherently an unsafe workplace".
"Workers are regularly racially abused, sexually harassed, subjected to homophobia and fat shaming and threatened with physical violence," she said.
"Customers have also shown workers indecent photos, workers have been pushed up against the walls and groped, had their dresses up-skirted; some of them have even had their identities revealed online and been abused at other jobs because they've been recognised or harassed on the street.
"And sadly, because of the nature of the workplace, these sorts of incidences are happening every shift."
Ms Sowerbutts believes it is vital Viral Ventures implements appropriate policies and procedures at Karen's Diner.
"They've created a work plan, unsafe workplace, and they've actively encouraged hazards as part of that business model," she said.
Karen's Diner 'unaware' of incidents
Viral Ventures operation supervisor Mark Smith said Karen's Diner took a "zero tolerance" approach to rule breakers, and those breaking the house rules were asked to leave immediately.
"We've only had to do that on a few occasions where we've had some unruly customers, and that's mainly been in terms of customers causing a bit of damage in the venue ," he said.
He said the company was aware of previous body shaming incidents, but disagrees Karen's Diner employees experienced inappropriate behaviour.
"We've got no reports or incidents of that ever happening" he said.
Mr Smith said there was no waiver staff were required to sign.
But Mr Smith said an early "drafted" version of a handbook did include a waiver asking employees to sign away their right to pursue injury claims.
