Since its opening in 2005, Jenkins and partner Mark Hutchinson made the Delaware Avenue restaurant a magnet for big-dollar corporate expense account dinners and Buffalo Bills representatives wooing football players to join the team.

While regular diners were served on the first floor, many special parties got the second floor spaces or the peak of exclusive high-roller Buffalo dining: the third-floor cupola room. Servers were paid an hourly event rate, while the 20% standard gratuity illegally went into the pockets of ownership and managers, the suit alleges.

That gratuity often topped $1,000, and more high-dollar gratuities flowed at Tempo’s off-site catering events, the lawsuit claims.

Tempo closed after dining room restrictions went into place in March. In the meantime, Hutchinson has expanded his Hutch’s restaurant on Delaware Avenue to include event space. A month ago, he said Tempo would reopen, eventually, when the business climate was right.

Jenkins and Hutchinson are also principals of the popular Erie Canal-side restaurant Remington Tavern, in North Tonawanda. 

Several former Tempo servers said they would welcome the opportunity to join the suit in pursuit of lost event tips, since they had been led to believe they deserved none of the gratuity. While it might not amount to much at other restaurants, the top-level private parties and catering they provided to Buffalo’s elite isn’t money to be abandoned, they said, especially under the current economic climate.