Former Food Network star Paula Deen, 78, shocked her followers by closing two of her famous businesses last month.
Dean announced she shut the doors of The Lady & Sons and The Chicken Box on July 31. The two locations became local landmarks in Savannah, Georgia.
“Thank you for all the great memories and for your loyalty over the past 36 years. We have endless love and gratitude for every customer who has walked through our doors,” read remarks on Deen’s official website.
The statement continued, “We are equally grateful to our incredible staff—past and present—whose hard work, care, and hospitality made The Lady & Sons what it was. Savannah will always be our home, and we’ll always be here to support our wonderful community.”
Following the announcement that The Lady & Sons coming to an end, Savannah television station WJCL reported that Dean did not notify her employees they would be losing their jobs prior to the abrupt closure.
Former staffer Brayden Fennell allegedly learned the restaurant had closed from an email sent by upper management the morning of a scheduled shift. Other dismissed employees said the restaurant “did them dirty.”
“We got a very small severance,” Fennell told WJCL about the financial fallout from Deen’s The Lady & Sons unexpectedly shutting its doors, before adding, “And they told us to go file for unemployment.”
As the lives of former The Lady & Sons workers have been upended by the sudden loss of income, Deen recently flaunted going on a mini-vacation. The former Food Network chef shared a photo with her husband, Michael Groover, on Instagram.
“I’m out of town for the weekend and missin’ my hubby! Who are you missin’ this weekend?” Deen wrote in the caption.
The photo featured the silver-haired couple smiling as they walked over a wooden bridge.
Some of Deen’s fans praised her weight loss and appearance in the picture, but the longtime television personality also faced questions and complaints about her restaurant closings.
“I live in Savannah. I just can’t believe your restaurant, The Lady and Sons, closed!! And your other one Chicken Box. There was no notice or anything, just closed. I hope everything is ok. It will be missed every time we are downtown,” a reply read.
A second person wrote, “You are probably escaping town so you don’t have to face your workers that you stiffed,” one person wrote in the comment section.
Facebook users have also weighed in on how Deen supposedly treated the people who worked at her restaurant.
“Apparently all of her employees either found out by an email or from social media this morning that they were out of a job. For someone who built their brand on southern hospitality- you’d think she would have a bit more human decency,” a critic pointed out on Aug. 1.
This is not the first time Deen has been accused of mistreating people who worked for her in Savannah. For instance, a Black cook named Dora Charles claimed the Georgia-bred businesswoman broke her promise by leaving Charles behind after reaching stardom.
Deen was also entangled in a scandal that nearly destroyed her entire cooking empire. Former Uncle Bubba’s Seafood and Oyster House restaurant manager Lisa Jackson filed a discrimination lawsuit against Deen in 2013.
Jackson and Deen reportedly reached a settlement. However, a transcript of Deen’s court deposition revealed she admitted to using the N-word more than once. As a result, Food Network pulled her shows off the air and she lost endorsement deals.
Deen apologized for using “hurtful language” and was eventually able to rebuild her brand by appearing on programs such as “Dancing with the Stars” and “MasterChef: Legends.” She started a subscription‑based streaming platform in 2014 as well.
In 2024, another Deen-related establishment closed down, also leaving workers unprepared. According to WKRG, employees arrived at the OWA Parks and Resort-owned Paula Deen’s Family Kitchen restaurant to discover they were no longer employed.
“I was told we [were] shutting down for good,” then-Family Kitchen line cook Stacy Schukraft explained to the Mobile, Alabama-based news station. “I was told to hand the keys over and to follow a gentleman to get our last paycheck.”
Server Tawanda McCants said, “We were all hearing rumors that we were going to close down. Everyone was telling us it was not true, ‘It’s just a rumor, we just renewed our lease,’ and then we get to today, and there is no more Paula Deen’s.”
OWA released a statement where the company insisted it was “committed to actively assisting those affected employees by providing guidance and support.” McCants offered a response, saying, “If you didn’t care for me at one place, why would I go work for you somewhere else?”
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