‘A little more salt in the wound’: Toma workers quit over fears that the new bar and restaurant is Padre 2.0

In a dimly-lit but brightly colored restaurant on a cold Saturday night, about eight customers sit at the bar sipping craft cocktails and chatting. A DJ plays music in the back corner that reverberates through the large space. Toma, the latest venture from embattled restaurateur Jay Krymis, is in its soft-open phase.

The only problem? Krymis does not have an active liquor license, nor a permit for live entertainment. In fact, at least three Toma employees have already quit less than a month into opening, citing late pay and fear that the new restaurant is heading down the same path as Krymis’s other, now-defunct, Long Beach establishments Padre and Mezcalero.

“It’s so disheartening,” Krymis said, denying some allegations while confirming others such as not having an entertainment permit with the city.

“I’m working so hard to build goodwill and I don’t want what happened at Padre to happen again,” he added.

At the same time, multiple vendors confirmed outstanding invoices with Krymis, including one dating back to April.

The restaurant and bar on the corner of Third Street and the Promenade opened its doors on Nov. 2, just over one month after accusations began to spread publicly that Krymis owed tens of thousands of dollars to numerous workers at Padre and Mezcalero. Those former employees also outlined a history of mismanagement, including unpaid utility bills, a lack of necessary supplies and equipment, and an underage woman pouring drinks behind the bar.

The alleged wage theft, according to the former employees, has led the Long Beach City Prosecutor’s Office to open an investigation into Krymis and his two defunct businesses. The office has declined to comment.

For now, less than a month into a soft opening, Toma is shuttered once again, continuing a pattern that has plagued Krymis’s string of failed businesses.

Late or non-payment of workers

In late September, 35-year-old Ryan Rivera was hired by Krymis as a co-bar manager. After weeks of work preparing the bar and restaurant to open, Rivera said he had not been paid.

Having heard grumblings in the local bar scene about the issues Krymis had at Padre and Mezcalero, Rivera said he began to worry Toma was heading down the same path.

“I started to notice the same patterns,” Rivera said. “Reading [the Watchdog] article and hearing all this stuff from other bartenders and servers that had gone through the same situation, I’m like ‘oh, shit.’”

“Money is ... how I take care of rent, bills, my wife and anything else that I need to have,” Rivera continued, adding that he had no choice but to quit and look for other work.

At one point, Krymis owed Rivera over $4,300, according to the former employee. After a partial payment, Rivera said he was still owed $1,200. Now, after weeks of badgering Krymis and after leaving the job, Rivera said he is still owed $70.

Rivera, who has been a bartender for more than a decade, said he has never experienced a situation where an employer did not pay their employees and vendors on time and in full.

“This guy shouldn’t have a bar,” Rivera said. “This guy shouldn’t have any restaurants anywhere.”

Rivera now works a couple nights as a security guard at Shannon’s on Pine and is looking for additional bar work. Rivera’s wife, who had recently gone part time at work to focus on other ventures, had to return to full-time employment due to the loss of income, he added.

Another employee had been owed hundreds of dollars from Krymis for weeks, Rivera said. The worker, who asked to remain anonymous, confirmed that it was a struggle to receive their pay for weeks before Krymis finally handed over the money. The employee admitted that their situation was less severe than other workers’, but said it still speaks to how the business is operating.

Unlike the previous scandal at Padre and Mezcalero where Krymis acknowledged wrongdoing, he has fully denied claims that he has not been paying employees. He said that there were some issues with payroll for reasons outside his control but added if pay was ever late, it was by “a couple days,” not weeks.

Rivera, however, provided a screenshot of his bank account showing a Zelle payment from Krymis in the amount of $1,130 on Nov. 14 — more than two weeks after his scheduled payday and over a week after he had quit.

Ricky Reyes, a Whittier resident, was hired as a host at Toma but quickly was assisting in other facets of the business, including decorating, barbacking and security. From early October to mid-November, Reyes said he put in long hours and was owed around $3,500. Krymis eventually paid him $1,000, Reyes said, but has yet to pay out the remainder.

“I thought the whole point of opening this restaurant … [was] making a big change,” Reyes said, referring to the hot water Krymis found himself in at Padre and Mezcalero. “But no, he didn’t. He didn’t do a goddamn thing. He did exactly what everyone said he would.”

“How fucking stupid and gullible of me,” Reyes added.

Krymis admitted to not having paid Reyes, claiming there is a discrepancy in what is owed. In a Nov. 21 text to Reyes, Krymis said he was expecting a loan to come through soon.

“I wanted to talk to you. I feel bad and want to pay you,” Krymis wrote. “Make things better and see if you wanted to come back.”

The day before, when talking to the Watchdog, Krymis accused Reyes, Rivera and others of  being disgruntled and using the bad press coming out of Padre and Mezcalero to punish him for personal grievances.

“People are hyper-aware … and using it against me,” Krymis said. “I don’t know how to fix it.”

Reyes, who had no prior restaurant experience, said he was excited about working in Downtown Long Beach, adding that he thought it would be a great opportunity to work in a beautiful, diverse area — a thought that quickly soured.

“He swindled me,” Reyes said. “And it wasn’t just [workers], it was the vendors.”

Unpaid vendors

Opening a restaurant, especially one the size of Toma, is an expensive endeavor requiring work from various contractors before opening. Once open, multiple food and beverage vendors become critical elements as well.

In April, Cypress-based Beach Plumbing completed nearly $11,000 worth of work at the restaurant for which the company has still not been paid, according to owner Chad Olsen, who is a second-generation owner of the family business.

“We dropped everything to go and help these guys get gas going back into their place,” Olsen said. “For us to drop everything … then to not pay us — it just hurts a little more, a little bit more salt in the wound.”

Olsen said his dad founded the company in 1993. Since then, Krymis is the only customer to not pay their bill, he said.

KegJoy, a distribution company specializing in kombucha, cold brew coffee and sparkling water, also has had issue collecting on invoices at Toma, according to correspondences obtained by the Watchdog. In a Nov. 4 email and voicemail, KegJoy sales manager Rod Sweitzer notes that the company has been trying to collect payment since Oct. 23.

“Please make the payment,” Sweitzer wrote. “It doesn't bode well for future business.”

But in a Nov. 25 email to the Watchdog, Sweitzer confirmed the restaurant has settled up on its account. It is unclear when the payment was made or what the amount was.

Krymis admitted to being on payment plans with multiple vendors after falling behind on invoices, including Sysco and Harbor Distributing, prominent food and beverage vendors in the region. He claimed he is still able to receive deliveries, however, but has no need for bulk inventory until business picks up to a steady level.

In the meantime, Krymis said he has made smaller orders through Instacart and Amazon, which are delivered directly to Toma.

But Harbor, an alcohol distribution company with more than 12,100 customers in the Southern California region, has Toma marked as a non-deliverable account as of Tuesday for lack of payment, a spokesperson confirmed, adding that Krymis owes over $5,600.

Illegal alcohol sales

Shuttered once again, getting alcohol is not a concern for Toma. However, having no license means the bar and restaurant was selling booze illegally for weeks, among other California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control violations, the agency confirmed.

Both Reyes and Rivera recounted transferring kegs and bottles of alcohol to Toma from the Padre and Mezcalero location, which were then sold at Toma. ABC regulations state beer and wine may be stored, but not sold, at other locations, while spirits cannot be stored or sold anywhere other than the licensed location they were delivered to.

Krymis told the Watchdog that alcohol moved to Toma was simply leftover from when Padre and Mezcalero were still operating. Harbor, meanwhile, confirmed $3,400 worth of alcohol was delivered to the Padre location on Halloween — over a month after the restaurant was shuttered and weeks after the final days of the upstairs bar Mezcalero. The order is a large one, the spokesperson noted.

Regardless, Krymis claims he was under the impression that his ABC license transfer from Padre to Toma was complete, making the transfer and sale of alcohol legal. But this was not the case, according to ABC spokesperson Devin Blankenship, who said the application was pending, making the transfer and sale illegal.

After being questioned by the Watchdog on Nov. 20, Krymis contacted ABC, claiming a misunderstanding regarding the payment of fees, Blankenship said. The agency advised Krymis to stop selling alcohol until the fees were paid, he added.

After nearly three weeks of illegal sales, Krymis shuttered Toma on Nov. 21 until the license issue is resolved — hopefully sometime next week, he said. As of Wednesday, the license is still pending with Krymis owing ABC an undisclosed amount, Blankenship confirmed.

While ABC takes the illegal sale of alcohol seriously, Blankenship said the agency is giving Krymis the benefit of the doubt in his claims that it was all a misunderstanding by only giving him a verbal warning.

Rivera, however, said such a misunderstanding from a restaurant owner with nearly three decades of experience demonstrates, at best, the same lack of attention to detail that toppled Padre.

“You can still demonstrate poor business management no matter how long you’ve operated an establishment if you allow personal issues to get in the way,” Rivera said.

Krymis argues that if he wanted to operate illegally, he would have opened months ago rather than waiting for what he thought was ABC approval. 

“They’re very slow. It’s not like I opened up a fake business or anything,” Krymis said. “I waited and waited to open and then finally they said, ‘you’re approved’ and I started selling. I wasn’t, like, gonna do this whole scheme under cover of darkness or anything.”

It’s unclear what these setbacks mean for the new restaurant and its opening. Krymis said he is not sure how much longer he can sustain the space being mired down in controversies, new and old.

“Whoever wants to harm me now, they’re doing it,” he said. “The reason, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter what I say anymore. I’m not running a drug ring or doing anything criminal — I’m just trying to open up a restaurant and make people money.”