UNITE HERE Sues Former Signature Room Owners for $1.5M Back Pay

UNITE HERE Local 1 filed a lawsuit in late January seeking roughly $1.5 million from former Signature Room owners Richard (Rick) Roman and Nick Pyknis, alleging the iconic downtown restaurant’s abrupt shutdown deprived 132 union members of wages, pension and health benefits they were owed under the WARN Act.

The complaint says workers were notified by email at 6 a.m. on Sept. 28, the same day the Signature Room and its lounge on the 95th and 96th floors of 875 North Michigan Avenue closed their doors. ABC7 reported the venue closed in 2023. The filing seeks the pay and 60 days of health insurance and other benefits that the law requires firms to provide before a mass layoff or business closure.

The new suit follows prior litigation against the restaurant’s operator, Infusion Management Group. In 2024 a federal judge ruled the Signature Room workers were owed back pay and benefits; the Chicago Tribune reported the award at $1.52 million, while Fox32 cited a March 14 order from U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber requiring Infusion Management Group to pay $1.5 million in back pay and benefits and $22,725 in attorney fees. Infusion’s bankruptcy case closed in 2024, with the trustee reporting no distributions to creditors, leaving the estate without funds to satisfy the judgment.

UNITE HERE Local 1 is now asking a court to hold Roman and Pyknis personally liable so workers can collect the sums ordered in previous proceedings and the damages alleged in the new complaint. The filing aims to pierce the protections that left workers unpaid after the operator’s bankruptcy produced no payout.

The union emphasized the human toll of the closure. In a statement, UNITE HERE Local 1 President Karen Kent said the Signature Room “will now be remembered as the fairy tale restaurant that vanished overnight, leaving dedicated staff and loyal customers in the lurch.” Fox32 summarized the workforce profile cited by the union: “The overwhelming majority of the workers are people of color who worked as cooks, servers, bartenders and concierges. One-third of them had been working at the Signature Room for 15 years or more and eight celebrated their 30th work anniversary last summer.”

The complaint also echoes reporting that the filing “alleges that the owners owe union members the wages, pension payments, and healthcare benefits it would have paid out during the 60-day notice period. The lawsuit seeks healthcare coverage and the salary workers would have received.” Attempts by media outlets to reach Roman and Pyknis for comment have not produced on-the-record responses.

For restaurant workers and unions, the case underscores two recurring issues: the difficulty of collecting judgments after an operator’s bankruptcy and the strategy of targeting owners personally to enforce WARN Act remedies. As the new suit proceeds, its outcome will signal whether plaintiffs can recover awards when an operator’s estate is empty and whether owners can be held directly accountable for closure-related pay and benefits.