If you’ve worked in a restaurant or a bar, chances are you’ve had a manager shave some of your hours from your paycheck, cut your breaks short, or pocket some of the tips off of your check. These wage theft practices—which literally amount to the company stealing money out of your pocket—are all too common in the restaurant industry. Often, they go unresolved. But sometimes, the company ends up having to pay.

That’s what happened this week when a King County Superior Court judge approved a settlement between the corporate owners of Sodo’s Pyramid Alehouse and employees who said the company had been stealing their wages for four years. The company is now paying out $450,000.

The average amount each employee will get is expected to be $1,045, with some employees earning as much as $9,800, according to King County court filings. Attorneys for the employees are taking 25 percent of the settlement, or $112,000. Eligible employees worked for Pyramid between 2014 and 2018.

Employees claimed that the company repeatedly failed to give employees required breaks, deleted hours off their timesheets, failed to pay overtime, and collected tips that were supposed to be paid to the employees. Brian Drew, a former bartender at Pyramid and one of the employees named in the original lawsuit filed in April of last year, said that the restaurant industry needs a culture change.

“Workers need to know they have rights and they can’t be fired for saying, ‘Hey something is wrong with my paycheck this week.’ And talk to your coworkers too. You’re not alone, and they’re probably experiencing the same things as you are,” Drew said in a statement on the website for Fair Work Center, which worked on this case. Several representatives of FWC appear in the photo above.

Pyramid Brewing opened in 1984 as Hart Brewing in Kalama, Washington. In 1995, the company went public and opened their Sodo location and then in 1996 took the name of its flagship beers, Pyramid Pale Ale and Pyramid Wheaten Ale (now Pyramid Hefeweizen). It merged with Vermont’s Magic Hat Brewing Co in 2008 and has since been bought and rebought by large corporate entities. It’s currently owned by a misleadingly named company called Independent Brewers United, which is owned by a nebulous stock market company called North American Breweries, which also owns a few other corporate beers.

Pyramid's bottled beers sold at grocery stores are pretty close to trash, but for some reason the beer at their Sodo location, which resumed onsite brewing in 2012, is actually pretty good. Their wheat Apricot Ale is surprisingly soft and refreshing if you buy it at the brewery.

Just make sure you tip your bartender in cash.