The Cathedral Buffet has closed, cold turkey.
Just weeks after a federal judge ordered televangelist Ernest Angley and his Cathedral Buffet to pay more than $388,000 in back pay and damages to employees, the popular restaurant in Cuyahoga Falls was shuttered without notice.
A sign outside the restaurant at 2690 State Road said the buffet was closed to the public Tuesday.
Two people reached by phone at the buffet and related ministry gave the same message: The restaurant always kept its prices low for families; it never made a profit; and the restaurant can’t run without volunteers.
“It was just a big shock to me,” said Jeanette Kalinowski, a Sagamore Hills resident who said she and her family were regular buffet customers for more than three decades. She said she brought her children, now in their 30s, when they were very young.
“We loved the place,” she said. “The people who worked there were very nice.”
The Rev. Rex Humbard opened the restaurant to the public in August 1971 adjacent to the Cathedral of Tomorrow. Back then, family dining cost $2.88 with children’s portions under $1.44.
Kalinowski found out about the closure on Tuesday when she called to ask what would be on Wednesday’s menu.
“It was just good food. The atmosphere was very nice,” she said. “We just really enjoyed it.”
Kalinowski said her favorite buffet foods were the fried chicken, navy bean and Italian cabbage soups, stuffed cabbage, fish, turkey and more. She wanted to get the restaurant’s recipe for a Jell-O and whipped cream dessert.
She and her family are not members of Angley’s congregation, Kalinowski said. “He’s a rich man, that Rev. Angley,” she said. “They should have paid the people.”
A federal judge on March 29 ordered Angley and the restaurant to pay $388,507.90 in damages and back pay to employees following a U.S. Department of Labor investigation. The investigation followed Akron Beacon Journal stories on the allegations; the Labor Department said it found 239 buffet employees were owed $207,000 and filed suit in August 2015.
The lawsuit said Angley and Cathedral Buffet Inc. “improperly treated certain workers as ‘volunteers’ and paid them no wages.” The suit also said the weekly salaries paid to managers were too low to qualify for an exemption from the federal minimum wage requirements, and the restaurant improperly employed minors ages 14 to 16.
The judge, Benita Pearson, said church members were urged to volunteer at the buffet and the restaurant used unpaid workers. She ordered the money be paid within 10 days of her March 29 ruling.
The amounts the restaurant owed employees ranged from under $100 to thousands of dollars, according to court documents.
Angley, 95, has maintained that buffet operators did nothing wrong. Angley attorney Lawrence Bach told Cleveland.com that the judge’s decision may be appealed. Bach could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Cleveland.com contributed to this story. Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow him @JimMackinnonABJ on Twitter or www.facebook.com/JimMackinnonABJ