Featuring neon signs and retro charm, the Route 9 Diner provides flavor from the 1950's. In addition to serving a full menu, several former employees claim the work environment offers old-school charm with a side of sexism.
HADLEY -- The neon signs and retro look of the Route 9 Diner in Hadley reflect a 1950s flavor, but several former employees claim that for years the work environment served up a side of sexism and outright harassment.
Ten former employees of the diner say they experienced persistent sexual harassment in the workplace. The allegations vary from sexual comments directed toward waitresses to cooks attempting to kiss them or trap them in a walk-in cooler if they refused advances.
Owners of the Route 9 Diner deny they knew of such issues but say they're taking the allegations very seriously.
The allegations came to light when Marie Billiel, a former waitress who worked at the diner from February 2008 to January 2013, wrote of the experiences on her blog.
The post, titled "Tales from the Diner," details sexual comments directed at waitresses by cooks and alleged conversations about the problems with the owners of the diner, Chris Karabetsos and Archie Sedaris.
"I was working overnights so I was quickly introduced to a lot of drunken college behavior. That took some getting used to, but it was nothing compared to the behavior in the kitchen," Billiel said.
Billiel began working at the Route 9 Diner when she was 18 years old. Originally from Shelburne, she took a position further south in the valley while enrolled at the University of Massachusetts. She now lives in Tel Aviv.
During her first shift, Billiel said the cooks would make comments regarding her appearance.
"There was always sort of catcalling back there, which I was able to laugh off," she said.
Billiel said she became upset when the harassment became physical. "I didn't think it would get to that level."
After working at the diner for a few weeks, Billiel alleges a cook named Javier said "C'mon, baby. Let me give you a kiss," while she was in the kitchen then attempted to grab her.
Since waitresses helped with a lot of prep work, Billiel says waitresses are in the kitchen whenever they're not at a table.
Billiel says she rushed out of the kitchen, cursing him as she left, then reported the incident to the manager working the overnight shift. The incident was reported to the senior manager who asked her to recount it the following day and apologized for it. As for the cook, Billiel says, "I don't believe he scolded him so much as teased him."
In following years, Billiel says she grew accustom to sexual harassment, which she and other waitresses say occurred every shift, saying it "became background noise."
She wrote in her blog:
I grew accustomed to being greeted by a chorus of "mmmmmmmmm" when I entered the kitchen, complete with licked lips and hungry stares. There were days that it was more bothersome than others. Some days the cooks would be angry and tell me, "no tienes tetas," (you do not have breasts,) when I asked for my tables' food. My days were so commonly punctuated by stares and sexual comments that I wrote it off as part of my job; it was just another bad tip or difficult customer. I spent shifts coaching a coworker on the many reasons she should leave her abusive boyfriend. I told her to stand up for herself and that there was no reason for her to endure the things she had. Then I walked over to the window to pick up my food, narrowly avoiding having my hand licked. There wasn't so much as a flicker of awareness of my hypocrisy.
When she chastised the cooks or reported issues to the manager, Billiel alleges the cooks retaliated.
"Basically everyone reported them at some point while working there. Then they'd lose your ticket (sheet of paper documenting an order) and say you never gave it to them when you asked for the order or they'd burn your food," she said, saying it would lead to lower tips from customers complaining of slow service.
Despite this, Billiel alleges that the owners knew, even perpetuated the harassment.
"The cooks knew what they could get away from so they wouldn't necessarily hide it in front of Chris and Archie. The cooks wouldn't necessarily slap someone's [bottom] in front of them, but they'd wink or lick their lips at the waitresses. Or they'd say something about a waitress and the owners would laugh. Not only did they enable it, they engaged in it."
Additionally, Billiel alleges that the owners saw interactions in the restaurant even while they weren't there due to cameras installed throughout the business.
"They'd look at those cameras every day," she said. "Somedays, they'd call us up and be like, 'why doesn't this table have drinks?' because they were looking at the stream on their phones. Plus, every morning, the first thing they'd do was look at the tapes from the overnight shift."
Billiel says she witnessed one of the owners reprimand the cooks once.
"We hired a new hostess, a young cute girl," Billiel said, adding that many hostesses were under 18 years old though she didn't remember her exact age. "She went into the kitchen and left after they started making comments about her, like they did to us. Then one of the owners, Archie, went into the kitchen and said, 'Shut your [explicative] mouth, that's my daughter,' That's the only time we heard anything like that," Billiel said, adding in a sarcastic tone, "The rest of us, not anyone's daughters."
Calls to contact Sedaris regarding this incident were unreturned. David B. Crevier, an attorney of the Springfield firm Crevier & Ryan, released a statement on the business' behalf. Read the full statement here.
Billiel said she and other waitresses were made to feel unneeded.
"They used to tell us all the time that we were expendable, that they had a stack of resumes this thick," she said while holding her thumb and index finger approximately two inches apart.
In an interview with The Daily Hampshire Gazette on Sunday, Chris Karabetsos, a co-owner of the diner, disputed Billel's views on employment. "They're who I want to keep," he said. "They're the face of the diner."
When asked why she continued to work at the diner, Billiel said it was for monetary reasons.
"The longer I worked there, the better the shifts I'd get. At the end of working a morning shift, I would make between $100 and $180 per shift," she said.
By earning much more than minimum wage, Billiel said the diner allowed her to work fewer hours while paying for living expenses in college.
Billiel wrote the blog post about working at the diner nearly two years after she left the position. She said she decided to write the post "to make everyone in the community who goes to the diner aware of what they're supporting."
After Billiel published her piece on Oct. 27, nine other waitresses and one former manager wrote similar blog posts about their employment at the diner.
Jaime Young, a native of Southampton who now lives in Boston, said she was inspired by Billiel's post and penned one of her own.
Prior to working at the diner, Young said she had limited experience with sexual harassment.
"It's in the Valley, that doesn't happen," she said. "I was really shocked by it. I hadn't really experienced it before."
Young also wrote of a cook hugging and kissing her neck, one of the cooks that Billiel alleges attempted to kiss her as well.
"Looking back, I literally feel like I worked in the '50s," Young said in a phone interview. "It was like a time machine, decor and all."
In a Facebook post, Karabetsos and Sedaris addressed the allegations their business faces:
Allegations have been brought to our attention and we want everyone to know that Route 9 Diner is Addressing and Not Running from This Matter. The management of the Route 9 Diner wants people to know that it takes seriously both: 1) the allegations made in this post and 2) its obligations to ensure that its employees do not work in a hostile environment in which they are subject to sexual harassment. Since these allegations have been brought to our attention, one employee has been terminated, and we have begun to work towards: 1) scheduling sexual harassment training for all employees and supervisors: 2/ the investigation of allegations of sexual harassment and: 3) the publication of a new sexual harassment policy. To the extent that you have information concerning any alleged sexual harassment at the Rout 9 Diner we encourage you to share this information with us by either: 1) emailing it to _route9diner1@gmail.com or 2) mailing it to us as "Personal and Confidential." We highly encourage that you keep any such information confidential so that the privacy of the alleged victims or persons so accused can be protected while the investigation proceeds. We will endeavor to keep confidential, to the extent possible, the identity of persons who provide Route 9 Diner with information in this regard.
The Facebook post was later taken down and the business Facebook page disabled at the request of legal council, Karabetsos told The Daily Hampshire Gazette.
Multiple requests for comment by MassLive were unreturned, instead releasing a statement on the matter.
In a statement signed by both Karabetsos and Sideris, the owners assure customers that they take such allegations seriously and are hiring outside council to conduct an internal review of workplace sexual harassment.
Additionally they emphasis that in the 11 years that the diner has been operating, "we have never had a sexual harassment suit filed, we have never had a sexual harassment complaint settled out of court and never had a complaint made to the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination."
Lewis Rubinson, shown on October 23 in Baltimore, is a doctor at University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore who was exposed to Ebola while working for the World Health Organization in Sierra Leone. He was quarantined at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, for three weeks and was recently released with a clean bill of health. 
