{"id":27270,"date":"2026-06-08T23:40:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T23:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/27270\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T23:40:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T23:40:07","slug":"melbourne-cafe-operator-fined-after-failing-to-back-pay-former-employee-hospitality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/27270\/","title":{"rendered":"Melbourne cafe operator fined after failing to back-pay former employee \u00a0\u00a0 &#8211; hospitality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">The operator of a\u00a0Melbourne cafe that describes itself as the \u201cworld\u2019s first happiness\u00a0centre\u201d has been fined for failing to back-pay a former casual worker.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Fair Work Ombudsman secured the $5000 penalty in The\u00a0Federal Circuit and Family Court against\u00a0Serotonin Eatery Exercise Education Pty Ltd,\u00a0the operator of\u00a0Serotonin Eatery in Burnley.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The penalty was imposed because the company failed to comply with a Compliance Notice which required a casual employee to be back-paid for work undertaken in November and December 2024.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The cafe was investigated after the affected worker contacted the FWO for assistance.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>An inspector issued a compliance notice to the company in August 2025 after forming a belief the company failed to pay the worker\u2019s minimum wages and penalty rates for weekend work, which is owed under the Restaurant Industry Award 2020.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The company back-paid the worker after legal action was commenced by the FWO.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth says employers that fail to act on Compliance Notices need to be aware they could face court-imposed penalties on top of having to pay workers.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen Compliance Notices are not followed, we will continue to take legal action,\u201d says Booth.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEmployers should be aware that taking action to improve compliance in the fast food, restaurants and caf\u00e9s sector is a priority for the Fair Work Ombudsman.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Booth says any employees with concerns about their pay or entitlements should contact the FWO for free advice and assistance.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Photography by eviegyy\u00a0\/ Pexels. <\/p>\n<p>For exclusive hospitality news every Tuesday and Thursday, subscribe\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hospitalitymagazine.com.au\/subscribe\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>\u00a0or follow us on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/hospitality-magazine\/posts\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/hospitalitymagazine\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The operator of a\u00a0Melbourne cafe that describes itself as the \u201cworld\u2019s first happiness\u00a0centre\u201d has been fined for failing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[250,25220,25221,311,260],"class_list":["post-27270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-melbourne","tag-cafes","tag-fair-work-ombudsman","tag-foodservice","tag-hospitality","tag-melbourne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}