Sophon Seattle and Karuna Long

First, I want to start out by saying that writing all of this out is extremely difficult for me as this is someone who I considered to be a very good friend.

Sophon Seattle has been closed for the past 2 weeks due to the employees going on strike for unpaid wages (he has since paid most of the employees) and other harmful working conditions. He has repeatedly failed to pay his employees on time, paid them with checks he KNEW were going to bounce, had resorted to paying them in cashiers checks and even cash in one case.

The keg fridge was broken for the longest time. It was a CO2 leak. The fire department deemed it unsafe to enter for more than 15 seconds. Employees had to hold their breath to go in and grab items from this fridge. After a few days with no repair, employees refused to even go in the fridge.

He set up health insurance for some team members and stopped paying the premiums like a month or two after it began, but still deducted this from the employees pay for MONTHS and said NOTHING. One employee has accumulated tens of thousands of dollars of medical debt due to this and he had been avoiding their calls and texts regarding this issue.

He has repeatedly told the team that his “generosity” is the reason his business is failing. He wasn’t even present in the space regularly until maybe last October? He prioritized paying for cheap repairs instead of PAYING HIS STAFF.

The staff received falsified W-2’s for the 2024 tax year and NEVER delivered corrected ones. The previous year (when he only had Oliver’s Twist) he didn’t get employees their W-2’s until early April. Despite the countless emails from almost every staff member regarding their w-2’s he gave nothing but excuses. Claiming his “accountant” was moving offices IN THE MIDDLE OF TAX SEASON.

All of these actions and countless others that I will not mention for his sake have caused most of his staff to quit. Now he is reopening with a different staff who either doesn’t know or just doesn’t care that he has done this to folks just like them.

Karuna Long has a history of manipulative, exploitive behavior, compulsive lying, and straight up avoidance of all of his responsibilities. He has shown repeatedly that he is unfit to run a business.