Half Moon Restaurant Faces Federal Wage-and-Hour Lawsuit in New York

Multiple workers filed a federal wage-and-hour lawsuit against Half Moon Restaurant LLC and its owner, Marco R. Tempesta, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York on March 12, 2026.

The complaint, docketed as case No. 1:26-cv-01449, names both the restaurant entity and Tempesta individually as defendants. Half Moon Restaurant LLC operates under the trade name Sweets of NY, and the lawsuit brings the kind of individual owner liability that restaurant workers and labor advocates have increasingly sought in wage cases, where corporate structures can otherwise shield principals from personal exposure.

The filing is a multi-plaintiff action, meaning more than one worker joined the complaint, a detail that tends to signal either a shared policy affecting a group of employees or a pattern of alleged violations broad enough to draw multiple claimants. Federal wage-and-hour cases in the restaurant industry typically allege some combination of unpaid minimum wage, withheld overtime, illegal tip pooling, or off-the-clock work requirements, though the specific claims in this complaint have not yet been detailed in publicly available court filings beyond the initial docket entry.

The Eastern District of New York, which covers Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and Long Island, sees a steady volume of wage litigation against food service employers. Named-defendant cases like this one, where an individual such as Tempesta is listed alongside the business entity, can result in personal financial liability if the court finds in the plaintiffs' favor.

The case was filed one week ago and is in its earliest stages. No court date has been set and no response from the defendants has been entered on the docket.