TROY — After his entire staff quit on the same night at the beginning of this week, the owner of The Shop has gone on the offensive with allegations of his own against the management team that he said orchestrated the walkout and impugned his character.

Kevin Blodgett, who owns and redeveloped the former Trojan Hardware building and launched The Shop in 2014, said Wednesday that the downtown gastropub will be closed for the foreseeable future while he mulls options. He blamed the mass resignation principally on the former head chef, Rich Matthews, who ran the kitchen and was central to management of The Shop since soon after it opened.

Matthews "served up a batch of his Kool-Aid, and the staff drank it," Blodgett said.

All 26 employees of The Shop, including Matthews and operations director Jared Barton, resigned after service on Sunday night. They left a folder of their resignation letters on the bar, the culmination of what five former employees characterized as long-simmering tensions between Blodgett and his two senior managers.

Previously: Staff of The Shop in Troy quits en masse

Barton and Matthews, who are engaged to be married, said they decided about a month ago to quit after Blodgett cut their pay without notice and became increasingly difficult to work for — usually absent or unreachable, and abusive when they did interact with him. Wanting to give staff time to look for other jobs, they told employees in mid-August of their plan to resign late this week, after most of Troy Restaurant Week was over.

But, they said, Blodgett's seemingly indifferent response to last week's MyPayrollHR debacle, which left a number of The Shop's staff with minimal or negative bank balances, exhausted employees' willingness to continue to work for him. The were unwilling to do so, several employees said, even for the duration of Restaurant Week, normally a lucrative period for participating businesses.

In interviews Wednesday, Blodgett denied he had been abusive, saying he was firm in his management style after he felt Matthews and Barton had been lax.

"When someone screwed up, I made it known that they had screwed up and that it couldn't continue," Blodgett said. "When you're dealing with a bunch of millennials that feel all kinds of self-entitled, you have to keep them in line. I made it very clear: If they didn't like it, they could quit. They were making such good money that they didn't quit."

Blodgett acknowledged that, although he lives upstairs from The Shop, he was an infrequent presence, especially over the past year.

"That's why you hire management — to take care of things," he said. But instead of managing, Barton and Matthews "became best friends with the staff, and they passed along the deep disdain they had developed for me."

Other former employees praised the culture fostered by Barton and Matthews, for staff and customers, saying it was one of the highlights of working at The Shop.

Emily Herendeen, a graduate student in social work who was a server at The Shop for five months, said that despite her short duration, "I could tell right away that (Barton and Matthews) really cared about us. ... I've been in the industry for 13 years, and in my experience that kind of feeling is unique."

When it became clear that they and many others intended to leave, Herendeen said, "I really didn't want to stay and potentially be in an environment that was negative or toxic without these two people who had made the place what it was for me."

Blodgett said he felt so attacked by what he deemed Barton and Matthews' underhanded behavior and character assassination that he decided to reply in kind.

"The manner in which they left was so entirely unprofessional and disrespectful," he said.

Blodgett went on to enumerate several allegations against his former managers, including claims that they stole food, alcohol and equipment when they left Sunday night. Blodgett said he did not have an inventory of what he believed was taken.

Barton and Matthews denied removing items that didn't belong to them.

"The only things we departed with were things we bought on our own that we have receipts for," Barton said.

They also denied Blodgett's claim that Barton had increased the pair's pay without his permission.

"Everything was approved through Kevin, whether or not he remembers saying it," said Barton. "It's par for the course that he rewrites his own narrative."

More for you News MyPayrollHR fallout: Troy restaurant staff quits en masse

Blodgett's most explosive response was to publicize the fact that Matthews is listed on the state database for sex offenders as a Level 3, the most serious designation.

"He painted me as bad, so I'm going to reveal the truth about him," Blodgett said.

Blodgett said he became aware of Matthews' past about eight months after hiring him. Blodgett was supportive, he said, going so far as to loan Matthews money for legal matters, accompany him to court and let him stay for free above The Shop when his offender status made it difficult to find a place to live. Matthews confirmed Blodgett's support during that period.

But after the events of the past week and the accusations lodged against him, Blodgett said, Matthews "has done so much to drag my name through the mud, it's eye for an eye, tit for tat."

Matthews' history appears troubling from the minimal details on the state database, which shows he pleaded guilty in 2006 to sexual abuse of three children under age 10 when he was 18. But testimony transcripts and other legal papers provided by Kathy Manley of Selkirk, Matthews' attorney in the matter, paint a more nuanced picture.

In testimony and his plea, Matthews admitted to sexually abusing the younger children. But in an assertion that was backed up by three witnesses, including one of the victims, Matthews said the incident happened when he was a minor. As such, Manley said in a motion, Matthews' case should have been handled in family court and his record should be expunged.

The judicial hearing officer in the matter, Michael C. Eidens, agreed the abuse likely occurred when Matthews was a minor, writing that the "preponderance of the evidence does establish that the incident ... happened in August of 2001."

But, Eidens found, nothing new had been introduced in the hearing, and since Matthews later admitted he had pleaded guilty despite knowing the date of the incident was wrong, there were no grounds for vacating the guilty plea on adult charges.

One of Matthews' victims, in an interview Wednesday with the Times Union, would not discuss any aspect of the abuse. (This person's name is being withheld by the newspaper, which does not commonly identify victims of sexual abuse.) But the victim expressed anger that Blodgett had brought attention to the matter again and would reopen old wounds.

Matthews "has transformed himself," the victim said. "All this article will do is make his life a living hell for another amount of time, and I don't think that fair to anyone involved."

Blodgett said he felt going public about Matthews' past was warranted. "He decided to do everything he could to destroy me," he said.

Blodgett said he expected he would reopen The Shop eventually.

"I don't know when," he said. "Obviously I need to hire a whole new staff, and that takes time."

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