Fresno's Horn Barbecue Hit With Employee Wage Theft Complaints Months After Opening

About a dozen employees walked off the job at Horn Barbecue's Granite Park location in the weeks after it opened in January, alleging the restaurant failed to pay them wages they had earned. The complaints surfaced roughly two months after owner Matt Horn launched his Fresno outpost, marking a troubled start to what he had billed as a homecoming.

Former dishwasher Jonathan Franco told The Sun he quit specifically because the restaurant did not pay him all the wages he was owed. Santino Capps, a Fresno State sophomore who took the job expecting his first real paycheck, described his hopes before starting: "I'm going to be able to get my own money. I'm going to be able to pay for my own things. I'm going to be able to put money toward college." When his first payday arrived, there was a problem.

Horn Barbecue acknowledged the situation but attributed it to scheduling complications. The company said the pay issues are temporary because the restaurant was delayed in opening, offering no detailed timeline for when affected workers would receive what they are owed.

The Fresno complaints did not emerge in a vacuum. Horn currently faces five open wage claims filed with the California Department of Industrial Relations, and state labor documents describe similar problems at his Oakland location, where one employee was promised $25 an hour but was never paid despite working 47 hours over six days. The most recent claim was filed March 9 in Fresno; the oldest dates to 2022 in Oakland.

On January 15, Francisco Berber, a former kitchen manager who worked briefly at Horn's Oakland location in early 2025, filed a California Private Attorneys General Act notice accusing the business of a "repeated and continuous practice of blatantly stealing from its employees and depriving them of their rightfully earned wages." Berber had previously filed a wage-theft lawsuit against Horn in Alameda County Superior Court; Horn has denied the claims in court. Under PAGA, workers can sue on behalf of themselves and other employees and seek civil penalties from employers. The state has 65 days to respond to an initial PAGA notice and had not yet responded to Berber's as of the most recent reporting. For context on the financial exposure such claims can carry, a PAGA-based settlement in 2022 resulted in a $2.2 million payout for more than 300 employees of a Bay Area restaurant chain.

The Fresno opening had been framed as a significant moment for Horn personally. At the January grand opening, he told the crowd, "We don't want to just come and bring a business to town. We want to bring a restaurant that's going to serve the community." Horn grew up in Fresno before building his reputation in the Bay Area, where he launched Horn Barbecue as a popup in 2016 and converted it into a brick-and-mortar restaurant in Oakland in 2020. By 2022, the brand had achieved national recognition, but also drew public controversy over wage theft allegations and lawsuits from vendors and former employees. The original Oakland restaurant closed three years after opening, following a fire that was later investigated as arson. Spinoff concepts including Kowbird locations in Oakland and Las Vegas and Matty's Old Fashioned in Oakland have all since closed.

Customer reviews of Horn's other locations have flagged problems beyond payroll, including repeated closures during publicized hours, locked and darkened storefronts, and at least one instance of a customer unable to pick up a brisket preordered for Christmas dinner. Whether the Fresno location can stabilize its operations and resolve its outstanding wage obligations will likely determine whether the homecoming holds.