Problems extended to some BRG restaurants 
 
 Most of the women interviewed by NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune said BRG's problems extended beyond the corporate office and beyond Besh and Mantilla's personal interactions with female employees. 
 
 
 
 The majority of the 25 women who claimed to have experienced sexual harassment at the company work or have worked in the kitchens and dining rooms of BRG's high-profile restaurants, including Domenica, Lüke, Shaya and Restaurant August. They said some male managers leveraged or tried to leverage their power for sexual opportunity; that other male colleagues harshly admonished female employees for minor mistakes while men went unpunished for baldly inappropriate behavior; and that much of this resulted in the marginalization of female chefs, who they say are often passed over for advancement. 
 
 
 
 "This is about treating people the way they should be treated," Landry, the company attorney, said after hearing details of specific complaints. "That is certainly what we thought we were doing. You've brought to our attention failures in that regard." 
 
 
 
 Mantilla and Besh both said the company's rapid growth, particularly since 2015, exposed operational deficiencies they're working to fix. "Prior to that, probably no one could make a move without me, without me knowing about it," Mantilla said, referring to BRG. "That has changed because we grew so quickly." 
 
 
 
 A BRG spokesman said about 60 of its 140 managers are women. "In addition, 15 women hold senior executive positions as general managers, heads of departments, Chief Operations Officer, or owner/partner," the spokesman said. 
 
 
 
 The owner/partners include two women: Emery Whalen, who co-owns a company that focuses on their businesses in hotels; and Kelly Fields, who is the only female chef-partner at BRG. Fields' restaurant is Willa Jean, a downtown New Orleans bakery. Several BRG employees described Willa Jean as being a particularly hospitable place for women to work. 
 
 
 
 "I'd be surprised if there were a more female friendly, queer friendly kitchen than it," said Susie Penman, a former Willa Jean cook. 
 
 
 
 "The fact that I am the only (chef) woman partner in the company, and John made that happen, it's a credit" to Besh, Fields said in an interview. "It enabled me to achieve my own dream. I don't know if that would have happened at any other restaurant group." 
 
 
 
 Several female chefs working in other BRG kitchens concede that restaurant work requires a thick skin. But they say the banter they encountered at BRG went beyond the pale, as some male colleagues went out of their way to make women uncomfortable and, as a consequence, create the false illusion of a gendered skill deficiency. 
 
 
 
 "There is no sugar coating on the line," said Melissa Montero, a sous chef at Lüke from 2013-14. "But there is a difference between yelling and screaming and punching walls and throwing things – outbursts that people in the dining room were disturbed by." 
 
 
 
 Montero said that was the behavior of one of her male colleagues at Lüke. When she complained, she said she was made to feel that if she didn't take things so personally, this wouldn't be a problem. But when she did something wrong, "I was vilified and humiliated," Montero said. 
 
 
 
 A current BRG employee said she witnessed Montero being singled out for verbal abuse. The employee asked her name not be used because she was still employed at the company and didn't want to jeopardize her job. 
 
 
 
 Besh and Mantilla said they had no knowledge of Montero's complaints, but that one of the employees mentioned "is no longer with the company." 
 
 
 
 Besh added, "I think we have good processes in place to minimize when these things do occur, with chefs that punch the walls or whatever that happened to be." 
 
 
 
 'These guys were grabbing me' 
 
 
 
 Meghan Wright worked as a server at Lüke during the same period as Montero. Wright said that what started out as innocent banter between herself and two male coworkers turned sexually abusive, verbally and physically. 
 
 
 
 "These guys were grabbing me," Wright said. 
 
 
 
 Wright said she complained and was told "they were good at their jobs." Wright said the men became more aggressive after discovering she had complained. 
 
 
 
 "The guys were like, 'We know what you said, you better watch your back,'" she said. Wright said she complained again. "'This isn't getting better. This isn't okay.' It got to the point where my boyfriend had to drop me off and pick me up at work. Like literally drop me off and pick me up at the door," she said. 
 
 
 
 Like Montero, Wright said she didn't want to be pushed out of BRG, whose collection of busy, high-priced restaurants represent attractive earning opportunities. She asked for a transfer to another restaurant and said she was told, "'No, I'll just schedule you when (they) aren't working.'" That never happened, she said. 
 
 
 
 "That's unacceptable," Besh said of the work conditions Wright described, although he said he couldn't recall ever having been made aware of them. 
 
 
 
 Montero and Wright both ultimately quit, they said, because of the harassment. 
 
 
 
 'He was my boss. I was scared s---less' 
 
 
 
 Several of the women interviewed said they came to understand that what they perceived as the company's male-dominated culture and the failure to address complaints about harassment was embodied by those at the top. A few of the women who have worked directly with Besh describe him as someone with outdated views on gender dynamics, in the workplace and otherwise. 
 
 
 
 Reynolds, BRG's former social media manager, said Besh commented on her appearance. "He said to me once, 'Do you have any idea how pretty you are? I'm sure you get that all the time,'" she said. "I mean, what am I supposed to say to that?" 
 
 
 
 "That is something that I don't believe I said," Besh said of Reynolds' claim. 
 
 
 
 Robison, BRG's former graphic designer, said Besh would ask her to speak with him about his affair with the former employee, the woman who later filed the EEOC complaint. "I never declined, because I didn't think I was allowed to. He was my boss. I was scared s---less in a way," Robison said. 
 
 
 
 In her notes about the conduct she said she encountered at BRG, Robison wrote this about the meetings with Besh: "He would cry and I would try and console him. One day he offered to buy me a $900 Billy Reid dress. I was uncomfortable and declined. I couldn't tell if that was my prize for staying quiet or if he was hitting on me or both." 
 
 
 
 "We talked through a lot of personal things," Besh said of Robison. He said he didn't recall offering to buy Robison a dress. "If I did, I didn't know it was $900," he said. 
 
 
 
 Dominique Ranieri, a server at the BRG event space Pigeon & Prince, said she was working at a party late last year when Besh called her over to where he was socializing with a group of guests. She was carrying a tray of fried oysters with caviar crème fraiche served in large spoons. 
 
 
 
 "He took one of the hors d'oeuvres and shoved it in my mouth in front of everyone," Ranieri said, referring to Besh. "It was a complete invasion of my personal space, and he laughed about it, and all of his friends laughed about it. It was like, 'Look at what I can do to this girl, and she can't do anything about it.'" 
 
 
 
 "Honestly, nobody gets up in arms when this kind of thing happens, because it's so commonplace," Ranieri said. "You can't complain about him. I wanted to for sure. But the work environment does not foster the kind of comfortability to complain about those sorts of things." 
 
 
 
 Ranieri was hired at BRG in February 2016. She is still technically employed, she said, but has not worked a shift since July and doesn't plan to return. "I just can't handle the misogyny anymore," she said. 
 
 
 
 In response to Ranieri's assertions, Besh said, "Never would it be my intention to ever make – especially an employee – feel like that." He added, "I put food in all sorts of people's mouths. Sometimes we're all together, it's just a party." 
 
 
 
 BRG says it's establishing HR department 
 
 
 
 In an early September meeting, Landry, BRG's general counsel, stressed that human resources was an area the company brass was targeting for improvement. He said it was a focus of Postlethwaite & Netterville, the consulting firm BRG hired last November, before any EEOC complaints were filed. 
 
 
 
 "We took a look and realized we're too big to continue with our approach. We need a full-time HR director," Landry said then. 
 
 
 
 For years, he said, BRG's approach was for the managers and executive chefs of individual BRG restaurants to address employee complaints in-house. "That worked great when we had one, two, three, five restaurants," Landry said. "Now, it's too much. We looked at it and realized we need some better structure here." 
 
 
 
 The company's first director of human resources, Dawn Peterson Hazen, began at the position Oct. 11, a BRG spokesman said. She will help to implement a new orientation program called Human Resources 101. Landry said in September that company managers had already started the program and that every employee would ultimately be required to go through it. A Besh Group spokesman said that "a significant portion of the program addresses sexual harassment related concerns." 
 
 
 
 In his statement on behalf of the company Oct. 19, Landry said, "Everyone at our company will be fully aware of the clear procedures that are now in place to safeguard against anyone feeling that his or her concerns will not be heard and addressed free from retaliation." 
 
 
 
 Yale law professor Vicki Schultz, who wrote an influential 1998 article that called for a broader legal definition of sexual harassment, explained that the courts have read federal discrimination law to encourage companies to set up human resources departments to police themselves – and that the law looks less kindly on companies that don't. 
 
 
 
 "It's kind of surprising that a company in this day and age, with so many employees, wouldn't have that kind of system set up," Schultz said in reference to companies of the size of BRG. 
 
 
 
 Alon Shaya, a multiple James Beard Award winner who until recently was chef at the BRG restaurants Domenica, Pizza Domenica and Shaya, said he asked Besh and Mantilla to set up a human resources department "on multiple occasions" since 2014, after the opening of Pizza Domenica. 
 
 
 
 "They responded no," he said. 
 
 
 
 "Alon never requested an HR Department, let alone on multiple occasions," Landry replied in an email. ||||| John Besh, the New Orleans celebrity chef whose dining empire totals more than 12 restaurants throughout the South, and his business partner, Octavio Mantilla, have fostered a culture that encourages rampant sexual harassment, employees say. 
 
 According to an eight-month-long investigation by the Times-Picayune which was released today, 25 current and former employees of the Besh Restaurant Group claimed to be victims of sexual harassment while on the job. Those voices join two official complaints filed in recent months with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: In one complaint, an employee alleges “I, and other similarly situated females, were harassed, sexually harassed, and verbally assaulted almost every day,” with “un-welcomed touching and sexual advances” that were “condoned and sometimes encouraged by managers and supervisors.” 
 
 In another EEOC complaint, a former employee says she engaged in a “long-term unwelcome sexual relationship” with Besh, alleging he once “engaged in oral sex” with her during a time when she “was barely conscious.” The same complainant also says she experienced retaliation on the job when she attempted to end the relationship. 
 
 Nine women gave permission for their names to be published in the Times-Pic piece; per author/restaurant critic Brett Anderson, they and the other women who came forward “described a company where several male co-workers and bosses touched female employees without consent, made suggestive comments about their appearance and — in a few cases — tried to leverage positions of authority for sex.” Some of those experiences occurred at the Besh restaurants under the auspices of chef Alon Shaya, who’s currently in the middle of a nasty split with the Besh Group. 
 
 In a statement given to the Times-Pic, Raymond Landry, Besh Restaurant Group's general counsel, said that the group learned recently that not all employees feel an adequate system is in place to ensure they “receiv[e] the respect they deserve” on the job. A spokesperson also tells the Times-Pic that the Besh Group, which currently employs 1,200 people, has never received an internal complaint about sexual harassment. 
 
 But “now that we have learned of these concerns,” Landry continues, “we believe going forward that everyone at our company will be fully aware of the clear procedures that are now in place to safeguard against anyone feeling that his or her concerns will not be heard and addressed free from retaliation.” They note the company’s first-ever human resources director started work on October 11 of this year. 
 
 Besh, in his own statement, admits to conducting “a consensual relationship” with an employee, and called his behavior “unacceptable.” He continues: “I alone am entirely responsible for my moral failings. This is not the way the head of a company like ours should have acted, let alone a husband and father.” 
 
 Sexual harassment has long been known to be a problem in the restaurant industry. In 2014, a study by worker advocacy group Restaurant Opportunities Center United found that 80 percent of female restaurant employees reporting experiencing on-the-job harassment from other employees; that number remained at the staggering 66 percent when applied to harassment from their managers. In the fast-food industry specifically, 40 percent of women reported experiencing “unwanted sexual behavior” at work, with 28 percent reporting “multiple incidents of harassment.” 
 
 In total, according to the 2014 ROC report, “while seven percent of American women work in the restaurant industry, more than a third (an eye-opening 37%) of all sexual harassment claims to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) come from the restaurant industry.” As the report points out, many victims of harassment often do not come forward fearing loss of income, public humiliation, or retaliation in the form of being passed over for promotions; some who spoke to the Times-Pic about the Besh Group reported experiencing the latter two, or say the ongoing behavior forced them to quit. 
 
 In recent months, more women have been speaking out about on-the-job abuse. Recent sexual harassment lawsuits have been filed against high-profile chefs like Corey Lee and Julian Medina. And the news about the Besh Group comes as a wave of sexual harassment allegations become public following an expose on Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein earlier this month; it will surely not be the last report in the restaurant industry. 
 
 • John Besh restaurants fostered culture of sexual harassment, 25 women say [Times-Pic] 
 
 • Statements by John Besh and his company regarding alleged sexual harassment [Times-Pic] 
 
 • I Am a Restaurant Owner. Why Aren’t My Peers As Disgusted By Sexism As I Am? [E] ||||| Below are statements by New Orleans chef John Besh and Raymond Landry, general counsel for Besh Restaurant Group, regarding allegations made by current and former employees who said they were victims of sexual harassment. Read the story for more on the allegations, and interviews with Besh and Landry. 
 
 John Besh's statement: 
 
 "Two years ago, I deeply hurt those I love by thoughtlessly engaging in a consensual relationship with one member of my team. Since then I have been seeking to rebuild my marriage and come to terms with my reckless actions given the profound love I have for my wife, my boys and my Catholic faith. I also regret any harm this may have caused to my second family at the restaurant group, and sincerely apologize to anyone past and present who has worked for me who found my behavior as unacceptable as I do. 
 
 "I alone am entirely responsible for my moral failings. This is not the way the head of a company like ours should have acted, let alone a husband and father. But it should not taint our incredible team of more than 1,000 employees, nor undermine our unyielding commitment to treating everyone with respect and dignity, regardless of gender, race, age and sexual preference." 
 
 Statement from Raymond Landry, Besh Restaurant Group's general counsel: 
 
 "We have learned recently that a number of women in our company feel that we have not had a clear mechanism in place to allow them to voice concerns about receiving the respect they deserve on the job. I want to assure all of our employees that if even a single person feels this way, it is one person too many and that ends now. 
 
 "While we've had a complaint procedure in place that complies with all existing laws, we now recognize that, as a practical matter, we needed to do more than what the law requires and we have revamped our training, education and procedures accordingly. Now that we have learned of these concerns, we believe going forward that everyone at our company will be fully aware of the clear procedures that are now in place to safeguard against anyone feeling that his or her concerns will not be heard and addressed free from retaliation." ||||| John Besh opened Besh Steak inside Harrah's New Orleans casino in 2003, two years after he launched Restaurant August. It was his second restaurant and the start of a restaurant group that would eventually include a dozen restaurants and employ about 1,200 people. 
 
 On Sunday night (Oct. 22), a Harrah's representative confirmed the casino had ended its relationship with the Besh Restaurant Group. 
 
 The decision came in the wake of an investigation by Brett Anderson of NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune, in which 25 current and former Besh Group employees said they were victims of sexual harassment while working at BRG or in its restaurants. 
 
 "The Harrah’s New Orleans management team takes the harassment allegations against the Besh Restaurant Group very seriously and to the best of our knowledge none of those allegations pertain to Besh Steak located in the Harrah’s New Orleans Casino," said the Harrah's general manager Dan Real in a statement. 
 
 Real also noted the staff of Besh Steak worked for Harrah's and not the Besh Restaurant Group. 
 
 "Harrah’s New Orleans maintains a robust human resources department and processes, including a toll-free anonymous ethics and compliance hotline which allows employees to report concerns and allegations," Real said. 
 
 None of the sources who NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune spoke to reported incidences of sexual harassment at Besh Steak. 
 
 The steak house, located off the main casino floor, will remain and soon have a new name. 
 
 Check back to NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune for updates. 
 
 *** 
 
 Got a tip? Know some restaurant news? Email Todd A. Price at TPrice@NOLA.com or call 504.826.3445. Follow him on Twitter (@TPrice504) or join the conversation at www.facebook.com/groups/wherenolaeats.
– More than two dozen women are accusing a celebrity chef and his business partner of fostering a Mad Men-type atmosphere they say was overrun by "kitchen bros." An eight-month probe by the Times-Picayune found 25 current and past employees who document sexual harassment while working at John Besh's Besh Restaurant Group, either for one of the New Orleans chef's restaurants or for corporate. The women allege female workers were victims of unwanted touching and remarks by male colleagues, and that some co-workers tried to use their power to convince women to have sex—and that when complaints were made, they went nowhere. One woman says she was pressured into a "months-long" sexual relationship with Besh himself, and that when she tried to stop it, others retaliated. Two related EEOC complaints have been filed against the company since December. In a statement, Besh, a 49-year-old married dad, acknowledges a "consensual relationship" with a team member. "I alone am entirely responsible for my moral failings," he says, though he denies fostering sexual harassment. A BRG rep says the company never received any internal sexual harassment complaints; an HR director just started working there earlier this month. Eater reports on sexual harassment stats in the restaurant industry, with one 2014 study reporting such harassment is "widespread." In a separate statement, a BRG attorney says the company has "revamped our training, education, and procedures accordingly" after hearing the women's complaints. Other fallout: Harrah's New Orleans casino has since broken ties with Besh's company, and a top chef with Besh's group says he was fired after speaking out about the company culture (though some women say he didn't help matters).