Ken Friedman Leaves The Spotted Pig

Ken Friedman, co-founder of New York City restaurant The Spotted Pig, settled with 11 former employees who had accused him of sexual harassment earlier today. Writing for The New York Times, Kim Severson and Julia Moskin describe the settlement, which includes a one-time payment and a share of Friedman’s profits from the restaurant:

The former employees will share a $240,000 settlement paid out over two years and, for the next 10 years, 20 percent of Mr. Friedman’s profits from the restaurant, including any money he makes if he sells the business, of which he owns 75 to 80 percent.

That wasn’t the only news that today brought with respect to the restaurant, however. Later in the day, Friedman also surrendered his majority stake in The Spotted Pig. “Although I stepped away from The Spotted Pig some time ago, I am also formally relinquishing my role in management and operations,” he said in a prepared statement.

Eater’s report on Friedman also notes that, as part of the settlement, The Spotted Pig is required to put new policies in place regarding harassment.

Friedman’s departure is the latest permutation in a saga that also involved Prune’s Gabrielle Hamilton and Ashley Merriman almost coming on board in 2018, until the deal fell through.

There’s another element to the settlement regarding The Spotted Pig that remains open-ended: the fate of Mario Batali, whose behavior at said restaurant (and whose larger history of sexual misconduct) drew attention to the issues there in the first place.

As Pete Wells of The New York Times noted on Twitter, the state’s investigation of Batali is not closed — and it certainly seems like the state is still working to build a larger case against him.

"The inquiry into Mr. Batali remains open, and investigators have asked that anyone with additional information about the chef’s behavior to contact the office."

— Pete Wells (@pete_wells) January 7, 2020

The settlement with Friedman, which the Times reports was made in conjunction with the New York State attorney general’s office, might resemble the high-profile settlement Harvey Weinstein recently made with some of his accusers.

Severson and Moskin note one significant difference, however: unlike Weinstein’s settlement, the money involved here is not coming from insurers. They write that “the money for the women victimized by Mr. Friedman will come directly from the personal wealth of the man who harassed them.”

This settlement will, hopefully, bring some sense of closure to at least one high-profile situation involving harassment in the food world. Unfortunately, it’s far from the only one — and as the ongoing investigation of Batali suggests, we’re still a long way from an industry where this sort of behavior is entirely absent.

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