Former bikini baristas at five coffee stands in the Puget Sound region say they were paid below minimum wage and forced to turn over earnings to keep up with strict sales standards. Now, a judge has awarded them more than $1.8 million.

The King County Superior Court judge’s order on Aug. 28 follows a yearslong legal battle over pay violations at the coffee stands in Seattle, Bothell, Lynnwood and Edmonds, most of which are called “Beehive Expresso.”

Coffee stands with “bikini baristas,” who wear bikinis or lingerie while making coffee, are popular across Washington. The industry typically falls under commercial food service standards and is generally less regulated than adult entertainment businesses. The stands have been the subject of multiple employee lawsuits in recent years.

In 2024, a King County resident and former employee of one of those five coffee stands, Eilish Hoffman, claimed that the stands’ owner, Alan Tagle, told baristas to take their wages and tips from the cash register instead of giving them paychecks.

The Working Washington Rights Center and Seattle law firm Schroeter Goldmark & Bender represented the barista, and the dozens of others who eventually joined the case when it received class-action status.

The lawsuit alleged that between 2021 and 2024, Tagle didn’t keep track of his workers’ hours, restricted their ability to work at other bikini barista stands, failed to give them sick pay, and paid baristas a rate of $50 or less for a four-hour shift — well below the state minimum wage.

If the baristas did not meet a minimum number of sales, baristas would receive fewer shifts or be fired, according to the lawsuit. Baristas “routinely forfeited wages and tips” to Tagle to meet his minimums, Schroeter Goldmark & Bender said in a news release.

The former baristas claimed Tagle told them to send “sexy pictures” to customers on social media to bring in business and meet strict sales targets.

After a multiweek trial in August, King County Superior Court Judge Cindi Port found that Tagle and his company engaged in widespread violations of Washington wage and hour laws, including failure to pay minimum wage, tip theft, sick leave violations and restraints on employees’ ability to work a second job.

Port preliminarily awarded over $1.8 million in back-pay, penalties and interest to the 70 former baristas, with additional interest and fees to be awarded in the future, according to a Schroeter Goldmark & Bender news release.

“This case exposed a system built to enrich Mr. Tagle and exploit his workforce,” said Lindsay Halm, a Schroeter Goldmark & Bender attorney representing the baristas.

Tagle’s Edmonds, Washington-based business behind the coffee stands, Tagle and Partners LLC, is still active, according to state records. He could not be reached for comment.

His brother, Jonathan Tagle, also faces a lawsuit, filed by the Washington attorney general, in a separate case over his bikini barista stands in King and Snohomish counties, called Paradise Espresso.

The state alleges Jonathan Tagle required them to do sexual acts for him in order to be hired, keep their jobs or get job roles. Since 2012, the state said, he requested sexual favors of the employees, touched them without permission, made sexual comments and recorded them changing.

The complaint also alleges that Johnathan Tagle failed to maintain a regular pay schedule and broke state law regarding paid sick leave.

A trial date for that case is set for March.

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