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Popular Park Slope restaurant faces $3 million tab in unpaid wages case
By
Arun Venugopal
Published Nov 20, 2025
Modified Nov 20, 2025
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Sean Anthony Eddy/Getty Images
By
Arun Venugopal
Published Nov 20, 2025
Modified Nov 20, 2025
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The owner of a popular Indian restaurant in Park Slope has been ordered to pay $3 million in restitution, fines and penalties for failing to properly pay employees over the course of several years, according to the state Department of Labor.
Mariam Khandakar, the owner of Indian Spice at 351 Seventh Ave., was notified of the department’s findings in late September and has days to file an appeal, according to the department. Failure to pay could result in a lien being placed on Khandakar’s property, under new authority given to the department.
Khandakar did not respond to repeated phone calls and emails seeking comment, and it wasn’t immediately clear if she had legal counsel. TripAdvisor describes Indian Spice as "perhaps one of the most popular dining spots for local area residents."
The eye-popping sum owed by Indian Spice's owner is unusual, but not unprecedented. In the last decade, nearly 30 New York state businesses have been hit with back wage claims totaling over $1 million, according to a government database.
The amount sought from Indian Spice includes approximately $915,000 in back wages and overtime, as well as an equivalent figure in penalty payments to the workers, plus 16% in interest payments. The restaurant owner also owes the state more than $1 million in civil penalties, according to a breakdown provided by the department.
The findings, summarized in an Order to Comply document from the department, concern five former employees, including a dishwasher, food busser, waiter and two chefs.
The department found that the employer failed to pay workers a minimum wage, did not provide one day off from work in a given week, failed to provide a lunch break, and did not maintain accurate pay records. The violations, according to the findings, occurred over one year in the case of one worker and more than eight years in another instance, from 2016 to 2024.
Raju Ahmed, who served as a waiter and manager, is due $308,000, according to the department, the largest single claim. Ahmed said in an interview that he worked seven days a week for years, only getting time off on holidays like Thanksgiving or Eid.
”There is no official day off for me,” Ahmed said.
Christine Buttigieg, a spokesperson for the Department of Labor, said the agency only issues an Order to Comply after exhausting many other avenues with a delinquent employer. The department was recently empowered to place a lien against employers who fail to make payments, under laws passed by the state Legislature this year and enumerated in Gov. Kathy Hochul’s state of the state speech, Buttigieg said.
Employees typically worked 75- to 80-hour workweeks at the restaurant, according to the Workers Justice Project, which assisted the employees with their claims. Shifts often lasted 11 to 12 hours.
The advocacy group said it had encountered several instances across the city where unpaid workers had been warned by employers that they would be reported to federal immigration authorities if they pressed their wage claims. City and state officials have said workers’ lack of legal immigration status is no barrier to recovering unpaid wages.
Ahmed said he and other workers were paid irregularly, and their pay never included overtime, adding that workers’ immigration status was an issue. All the affected employees are from Bangladesh, Ahmed said.
“ Not all of us has a green card and everything,” Ahmed said.
Nicole Salk, a staff attorney at Brooklyn Legal Services who helped the workers secure unemployment benefits, said that due to an absence of pay records, she and others involved in the case “had to work really, really hard” to obtain benefits.
“And so not only is she not paying them the wages that they're owed, they are doubly being punished because she hadn't reported their wages to the tax authorities,” Salk said, “and therefore it took them months and months to get unemployment for that reason.”
Shahana Hanif, a city councilmember from Brooklyn whose office assisted in the case, said “labor exploitation is increasing,” and at times affects newer immigrant workers employed by other immigrants who have been in the United States longer.
She welcomed the Department of Labor’s findings related to Indian Spice and urged other workers to visit the website of the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection if they were victims of wage theft.
“ I really hope that we're able to get the word out about this case,” Hanif said.
This article was updated to clarify the role of Brooklyn Legal Services in assisting former Indian Spice workers.
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Arun Venugopal
Arun Venugopal is a senior reporter for the WNYC and Gothamist Race & Justice Unit who focuses on issues of race and bias in our region. His reporting also tackles the topics of immigration, faith, and inequality. Arun serves as the regular fill-in host of the station's "U.S. of Anxiety" program. Arun was the creator and host of Micropolis, a series about race and identity. He is a contributor to NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered. He has appeared on PBS Newshour, On the Media and Studio 360, and has been published in The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal and Salon. He also frequently serves as an emcee and moderator of panel discussions on race, religion, and identity issues and has been a guest host of NPR's "Fresh Air." He lives with his family in Queens.
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