‘The worst place I have ever worked’: Former Adelaide Karen’s Diner employee speaks out

A former employee of Karen’s Diner in Adelaide has confirmed the controversial venue has closed – saying things started well, but quickly fell apart.

Notorious restaurant chain Karen’s Diner has closed its doors in Adelaide, as liquidators are appointed to wind up most of its Australian venues.

The American-style chain restaurant known for its “rude service” closed three of its diners around the country last week, and suddenly shut up shop at its East Tce location on Sunday night.

A former employee at the Adelaide store – which opened in December – said staff were told on Monday, May 29, that the SA location would have a month to prepare for closure.

Three days later on Thursday last week, they were told the venue would close on Sunday, June 4.

“It shut pretty quickly, it was crazy,” the employee said.

“After Friday, we had to tell patrons they could only pay their bills with PayID directly to the owner or pay with cash.

“It’s probably the worst business I have ever worked for.”

A publicity picture of Karen’s Diner employees. Picture: Karen's Diner

The abandoned Karen's Diner in Adelaide. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Morgan Sette

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A Karen’s Diner spokesperson confirmed the company has ceased trading due to “financial difficulties” and that all staff had been paid everything they were owed.

“It has been a struggle and we hoped we could be around longer … fundamentally it is another restaurant closing, people are going out less because of the cost of living and traders have been affected,” the spokesperson said.

“We have given as much notice as we could to the staff and all we’ve tried to do is the right thing.”

The last day of trade for Karen’s was on Sunday night, and about 50 people showed for the venue’s last hurrah.

The employee said they were told to tell customers the restaurant was closing because it was a pop-up venue.

“At the start we were told it wasn’t a pop-up, it was a permanent thing, it’s not going anywhere, no reason to fret,” they said.

“Now I’ve been told it was a pop up that had run its course and now time for their next big venture … it all went to a flop.

“They (the owners) were disorganised and new, they had no idea what they were doing. It was businessmen who decided to open up a restaurant because it had done pop-ups and thought ‘oh, we have done pop-ups we could do a restaurant’.

“Everything was rushed, the Karen’s fad had started, they saw there was potential for growth, then they grew exponentially way out of their scope, and then fell apart.”

Karen's Diner in Adelaide. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Morgan Sette

The former employee of Karen’s Diner said staff realised the company wasn’t paying their superannuation, forcing them to chase up the payments.

“It got paid, but we had to chase it … an old operations manager reached out to me and let me know to check my super, I checked and there were no contributions, and all of the Karen’s caught on to that quickly,” the employee said.

The Adelaide closure was the fifth Karen’s Diner location to close this month. The company behind most of the Australian venues, Viral Ventures (Australia), fell into liquidation last week, leading to closures in Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane and Gold Coast. The Adelaide venue is run by a separate company.

There are now only two stores in Sydney, which are run by a different entity.

Despite the doom and gloom, the employee said working as Karen and playing the part with the customers was enjoyable.

“It was a really good vibe when we started, when it first opened I really liked it because they had a big focus on making sure we were mentally okay and the workload wasn’t too much,” the employee said.

“There was a family unit between staff and serving the customers was incredible.”

Originally published as ‘The worst place I have ever worked’: Former Adelaide Karen’s Diner employee speaks out