The final season of Hulu’s critically acclaimed kitchen drama The Bear is set to kick off on June 25, and no doubt it will continue to captivate audiences with its chaotic, high-pressure portrayal of restaurant life. The series follows Carmy Berzatto, a fine-dining chef who returns to Chicago to save his late brother’s sandwich shop, transforming it into an ambitious restaurant – all while navigating staff conflict, burnout, and financial strain. While the show excels at dramatizing workplace tension, it also offers a useful reminder that entertaining workplace dysfunction does not always align with employment law best practices. This spoiler-free Insight will cover five things The Bear gets wrong from an employment law perspective and how your company can avoid similar mistakes.
1. Management by Outburst Isn’t Leadership
Throughout the series, Carmy’s volatile management style creates an environment where yelling, emotional blowups, and public criticism are normalized. While high-pressure kitchens have long had a reputation for intensity, repeated verbal outbursts can contribute to claims of hostile work environments, retaliation, or emotional distress, especially if conduct disproportionately affects certain employees or escalates after workplace complaints.
Fast-paced environments, hierarchical kitchen structures, late-night hours, and customer-facing pressures can create conditions where inappropriate behavior is normalized or overlooked. Although the show periodically recognizes the damage caused by its high-pressure environment, most employers should realistically be addressing these issues much earlier through HR involvement, formal complaint documentation, workplace investigations, and required training.
For assistance setting up policies surrounding appropriate workplace behavior or training programs to help recognize and deescalate hostile situations, consult with your FP counsel. The first step should always be to assess what risks may come up in your workplace. For example, in The Bear, the restaurant’s late-night hours, high intensity demand, and customer-facing interactions present unique risks to Carmy’s staff. After determining what could exacerbate or create misconduct, establish a workplace violence prevention plan.
Learn more about steps you can take to prevent workplace violence and harassment here.
2. “Everyone Does Everything” Creates Wage-and-Hour Problems
Throughout The Bear, employees routinely shift roles, work long hours, and absorb new responsibilities without much discussion of compensation, scheduling, or classification. A “whatever it takes” culture may make for good television, but in practice, unclear expectations and undocumented hours can create significant wage-and-hour exposure. Hospitality employers need to make sure they are legally compliant when it comes to overtime, meal and rest breaks, tip pooling, and exempt/non-exempt classifications.
Multiple states and cities have different rules when it comes to tip-pooling and minimum wages for staff performing tip-earning work. Switching employees between these roles, especially when having them complete tasks that are not related to earning tips, can create serious wage and hour liability. Additionally, having staff take on multiple roles can make timekeeping complicated, potentially exposing your business to overtime liability.
Check out FP’s refresher on tip-credit rules to make sure you’re on top of compliance.
3. Performance Management is Inconsistent at Best
The Bear also highlights a common workplace challenge in family-owned or family-adjacent businesses: inconsistent treatment of employees with personal ties to ownership or leadership. “Cousin” Richie Jerimovich occupies a quasi-family role given his lifelong friendship with Carmy’s late brother, Mikey. In Season 1, Richie is shown selling drugs out of the restaurant parking lot – conduct that, in most workplaces, would likely trigger immediate disciplinary action or termination. Instead, his behavior is largely overlooked, and by Season 4, he evolves into a core member of the restaurant’s operations as partner.
While loyalty and personal history often influence workplace decisions in closely held businesses, employers should be mindful that similar conduct by another employee without those relationships may not have been tolerated. This can potentially create perceptions of favoritism or inconsistent enforcement that can complicate later employment decisions.
Read more from FP about the pitfalls of favoritism in the workplace.
4. OSHA and the Kitchen Floor: Managing Safety Risks in Fast-Paced Restaurants
The Bear also raises serious workplace safety issues that in the real world would likely attract attention from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and state regulatory bodies. The series depicts a range of hazards common in fast-paced kitchen environments, including open flames, crowded and high-traffic workspaces, and incidents of accidental injuries such as staff being cut or otherwise harmed during service.
While these moments are often used to heighten the show’s dramatic tension, they reflect real risks present in restaurant operations if safety protocols are not properly implemented.
Where incidents do occur, employers may also have obligations to document and report workplace injuries, cooperate with safety investigations, and respond to OSHA inquiries, reinforcing the importance of proactive compliance rather than reactive crisis management. Ensuring your management team has a plan when accidents happen in the workplace is critical. You should educate your managers and staff on how to respond to injuries on the job, including where first aid is located, how to document injuries, and report accidents. Ensure both managers and employees know that retaliation for reporting workplace injuries or safety risks won’t be tolerated.
Contact a member of FP’s Workplace Safety Group if you need assistance in crafting a safety and health program specific to your business.
5. Constant Organizational Change Without Communication Raises Risk
The Bear thrives on chaos. Employees are often expected to adapt with little notice or clarity. Sudden changes to schedules, compensation, job duties, or reporting structures – especially without communication – can increase the likelihood of employee complaints, turnover, and legal disputes.
These quick changes can create risk in some jurisdictions that have predictive scheduling laws. Oregon, as well as places like San Francisco, Seattle, San Jose, Emeryville (CA), New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, Berkeley, Evanston (IL), and Los Angeles County, all have some requirements related to predictive scheduling. These laws can require employers to provide advanced shift assignments and compensation for unexpected shifts.
Learn more about predictive scheduling rules and how they could impact your business here.
Conclusion
If you need assistance in crafting appropriately tailored workplace policies or training for employees or managers, reach out to your Fisher Phillips attorney or the authors of this Insight. We will continue to monitor developments related to all aspects of workplace law. Make sure you are subscribed to Fisher Phillips’ Insight System to get the most up-to-date information. If you have questions, contact your Fisher Phillips attorney or the authors of this Insight.
About the authors:
Olivia Italiano defends employers of varying sizes and industries against claims of discrimination, harassment, wrongful discharge, retaliation, hostile work environment, as well as whistleblower lawsuits. Olivia also counsels employers on workplace-related decisions and best practices for hiring, firing, discipline, and accommodations, plus prepares employment policies, contracts, and handbooks.
Prior to joining Fisher Phillips, Olivia served as an associate at a multi-practice, commercial law firm in New Jersey where she focused on employment and commercial litigation in state and federal courts. Prior to that, Olivia was a litigation associate at a New York law firm, where she concentrated on complex commercial and security matters, as well as employment disputes. After law school, Olivia served as a judicial clerk for the Honorable Joseph A. Portelli in Passaic County Superior Support, Family Division.
Alden Parker is the managing partner of the firm’s Sacramento office and the co-chair of the Hospitality Industry Group. Alden represents employers in all facets of employment law matters. His clients are involved in a variety of food chain related industries. From growers, packers, and shippers to grocers, restaurants and hotels, Alden works tirelessly on behalf of employers from the farm to the fork.
Alden has considerable experience defending employers in single plaintiff and Class/PAGA litigation. Those claims have involved the claims of discrimination, harassment, and wage & hour violations pursuant to State and Federal Law. Alden has also defended employers against whistleblower and retaliation claims, including claims under the California Whistleblower Act and various provisions of the California Labor Code.
Source: View the original article at HospitalityLawyer.com.
